Burial at Sea
by Wwrath
Summary: There's more than one way to drown, and more than one world to do it in. (OC self-insert.)
1. Washed Ashore (1)

**A/N (PLEASE READ)**

So, here we are. Somebody's writing yet another Naruto semi-SI semi-Peggy Sue reincarnation fic. Why am I doing this? Because I have an unhealthy addiction to the genre - and it is a genre at this point, let's be real.

There are a couple things I do wanna say before this thing kicks off.

First, I want to say that I think I got what I wanted out of this first chapter, but it's a bit murky and exposition-heavy; I don't have the fortitude to write out every detail of some OC's childhood, so the first five years are covered here, through a few scenes and a lot of weird summary and introspection. This isn't actually how I usually write, so please expect the writing to be much more grounded and crisp in the future. If the first chapter's setup is a turn-off for you, that's fine. I get it. Give this a chance if you want, or don't.

Second, I really don't have an update schedule here; I'm busy working on a visual novel, and this is kind of something I'm just testing out. If I get into it properly, maybe I'll work out a schedule later.

Third, let me just extend a huge fucking thanks to the folks behind my favorite weird long-form Naruto fics: Silver Queen, ElectraSev5n, SixPerfections, SoundlessSleep. Even the _concept_ of this story wouldn't exist without them, and I've had a ridiculously good time getting lost in their work. Y'all are legends.

I guess that's all. Let's get to it.

* * *

"No wonder we cannot appreciate the really central Kafka joke: that the horrific struggle to establish a human self results in a self whose humanity is inseparable from the horrific struggle. That our endless and impossible journey toward home is in fact our home."

\- David Foster Wallace, _Consider the Lobster and Other Essays_

* * *

There are a lot of ways somebody can die. If you really stop to think about it, the possibilities are basically infinite – just about anything can kill you if it tries hard enough. Maybe tomorrow you get crushed by a falling rock, or maybe you trip on a dirty sock and crack your temple against the edge of a table. Someone could stab you with a screwdriver hard enough to punch a hole in your gut and lock you in a closet to let you thrash around uselessly until you bleed out. That empty vodka bottle on your desk can put a body down in more ways than anybody needs to think about.

Some of the many ways to die aren't too nightmarish; decapitation by enemy kenjutsu specialist, abrupt and severe aneurysm, lethal injection. The kind of thing you don't really have the time or faculties to feel. (Wait, _is_ lethal injection a merciful death? I guess I'll never know.) And then some ways are _definitely_ horrible; burning to death, slow and sadistic torture, succumbing to a really cruel disease, being forced to swallow toothpicks. It gets bad.

I can't really rank this stuff, though, despite having a morbid urge to try. See, it's hard for me to compare when I've only died once.

Well, I _think_ I've only died once. I've been wrong about some pretty crazy shit before.

To me, drowning seemed like one of the worst ways somebody could go. Not being able to breathe is a terror beyond terror – you panic, thrash around even if you're _not_ in water, basically just become a pathetic animal. Don't get me wrong, though. I love water, and dying in it somehow didn't manage to ruin that. A lifetime ago I spent a whole lot of time at the beach, in pools, so on and so forth. During that life, I came close to drowning at least four times, and none of that shit was enough to discourage me. Really, I think that's kind of reasonable. _Nowhere_ you go is actually safe, right? Even civilians know that safety is a comfortable illusion. That was something I'd thought I understood.

And yet, in the end, all the scary almost-deaths left me _less_ mentally prepared for the concept that I might not get the _'almost'_ prefix next time. Maybe my subconscious figured _"well, something_ _happened to save_ _you at the last second the other four times, so that's just how this goes."_

Nothing happened at the last second. Sometimes _that's_ just how it goes.

I'm lucky enough not to remember the details, most of the time. Apparently, dying and being reborn in another universe really leaves your memories a mess, especially the ones leading up to the big moment; it took years to properly remember it happened at all. All I know for sure is that it wasn't important or even dramatic; some people's endings are just dumb. I wasn't trying to accomplish anything, I wasn't doing something heroic. It was probably my own fault.

Anyway. Reincarnation was something I was always sort of wishy-washy about. I didn't _believe_ in it, but I didn't _not_ believe in it, either. Call it something I _hoped_ would be real; afterlives all sounded uncomfortably infinite, and so did, you know, the incomprehensible soul-flaying concept of just _ceasing to exist._ The best option I could think of went about like this: _"hey, wouldn't it be sort of tolerable if a single consciousness_ _just migrated on somehow,_ _with maybe some kind of hub in between lives where you could remember all of them at once?"_

That didn't pan out quite how I wanted, but I guess it wasn't _too_ far off the mark.

But does any of that really matter now? I mean, that's not even the life I'm living now. Actually... the life I'm I more _accustomed_ to living might be over too. It's... hard to tell. This might even be that void between lives I used to theorize about; maybe you just... forget it, when it's time to spin the wheel again, and that's why this is new to me. Fuck if I know.

All I know is that it's dark here, and it's cold, and I don't even think I have to breathe. Pressure is everywhere, bearing down on me, something out of my worst memories, worst nightmares: infinite drowning, forever and ever.

Except... drowning forever _isn't_ that frightening, at least not when I'm already dead or comatose or whatever the fuck I am now, without even lungs that I can feel.

I'm not... really sure why, or _how_ , I'm saying all of this. Am I saying anything at all? I feel like I _am_ saying something, even if I can't justify that feeling. How do you speak without a mouth, without hands? It's just that it feels like the things I'm thinking... _echo,_ sort of. Ripple through an endless, lightless ocean.

I don't see anything, if I even have eyes anymore, but I can't help but think I'm not alone here. That there are... _other_ things, things that might be floating right in front of me at this very moment, mocking me for my sightlessness. Small and flittering and numerous, or massive and unfathomable, all writhing together through eternity.

Is that what you are? Some tentacled god, or hell, even just a spirit? Or are you another doomed soul like me? I know you're there. I know you're listening to me. Somehow I can just _feel_ that there's an ear or at least a mind receiving all of this. I wish you'd say something to me... but then again, maybe it's for the best that you don't.

Maybe listening is fun for you. Maybe it's disturbing you to hear all this. Maybe you don't care.

But you're all I've got, and as far as I can tell, I have all the time in the world to kill, so buckle up. This story's long and stupid and horrible.

... I hope you _do_ find a way to enjoy it. I think I'd feel a little better about this if something in the multiverse could.

* * *

 **BURIAL AT SEA**

 **Washed Ashore, Chapter 1**

* * *

Everything was dark, and wet, and I wasn't breathing, and I was being crushed from every direction at once... and then I wasn't.

It was hard to think at all, at first. I felt... half-asleep, scared and confused and empty. Where the fuck was I? I'd gone from perfect darkness to a light so brutally bright that it was agonizing, a sense of powerlessness completely different from what had been happening to me just seconds before. Everything felt - _wrong._ Baffling. Inexplicable. Mentally and physically.

Shouldn't I have been dead? My lungs didn't feel any less full of water... or did they? Every one of my senses was rubbed raw, somehow, and it was impossible to decode any of them.

Suddenly, something slammed into me from behind, and between the shock of it and the total insanity of the situation, it was just... too much. So I cried, or at least, I couldn't hold the urge to attempt to cry back any longer.

I was even more shocked and confused when it worked.

That didn't help _much_ to calm me down, but even a little bit counts when you're completely losing your shit. And everything was weird, but also warm, and I was _alive,_ and surrounded by sounds that I didn't exactly understand but were soothing and also weirdly... familiar. I could recognize that they were words even if none of them meant anything, but holding any more complicated ideas than that in my head just wasn't working.

I had been terrified just a little while ago, but for the life of me I couldn't remember why. Something scary had happened, right? Or... maybe I had just been dreaming?

Eventually I gave up on sorting it all out and tried to sleep, since I didn't seem to be in any immediate danger and I felt completely fucking wretched. I was tired, and things hurt, and it was difficult to think, but there wasn't anything to be afraid of, was there?

When I woke up again, I barely remembered that there had been anything to forget.

* * *

Somewhere in the first week or so, my mind foggy and lazy and content to just let things happen, the part of me that could still _kind of_ think like a person realized that the creatures around me I thought might be giant people or something were... well, only giant by comparison to me, because I was small.

Very small, and not at all myself.

Somewhere in the second week it finally sank into place. I was... I was a _child._ A baby, probably. Or at least, I was in a baby's body. I didn't exactly feel like one, but then again, what was a baby supposed to feel? People don't remember that far back pretty much ever.

And if I was a baby, why did I feel so - what would I even call it? Smart? Knowledgeable? Because I _was._ I knew things I shouldn't have known. I made guesses based on information that a real baby obviously couldn't have. Some of the time, my thoughts were in actual words.

I felt so strange, like I had... _come_ from somewhere, somehow. But... that didn't make sense.

Then again, what _did_ make sense about the situation?

By what was probably the third week, I had processed enough fragmented thoughts to realize that the giants carrying me around and feeding and clothing me were probably... parents. My parents, except... were they really? I felt on some surreal, deep level that I had those already, and they were different somehow. For one thing, I could swear I knew their language, and whatever familiar-but-foreign words these people spoke just didn't parse at all.

After a few more weeks, or months, or something... I had mostly stopped worrying about it. I wasn't getting answers anytime soon, clearly, and maybe in a way it was kind of nice. Why something my age would have lingering stress, I couldn't imagine; if I hadn't even existed, what could have been weighing on me? Well, whatever it was, this felt like a massive reprieve, like I was being given a chance to just give up and not have to try anymore.

It's unbelievably strange, to feel like you're cheating life by being given a rest from responsibilities you don't remember and aren't entirely sure were real at all.

My _mind_ had been drowning, or at least I felt like it had been - choked by lost responsibility, crushed by expectations, left in a state of constant fear for reasons I could no longer recall.

I wasn't drowning, anymore. I was floating on the water's surface.

* * *

The very first bit of this odd language that I learned was my name. I'm not sure if I was _taught_ my name before I figured it out; it just wasn't hard to pick up on when the words kept showing up in reference to me. _Namiko._ I let that word roll through my mind every single day, hoping it would fill the strange hollow space that where I felt like a name should already have been. The strangest part, though, was how quickly it was over, how easily I adjusted.

Maybe I just had a lot of motivation. Hearing people I'd essentially imprinted on saying my name all of the time, especially when something was wrong and I was crying again... it set the associations firmly in place. This was a _good_ thing. I could be Namiko. That much was within my miniscule power.

... I relied on that fact, honestly. In a world where I could hardly see and every attempt to speak came out as meaningless sobs, those syllables gave me something to hold onto, a foundation for an identity, a set of sounds that made things _better._

A lot of things about being a baby are incredibly gross, but... I had people to take care of that, to take care of _me._ I think I must have loved Mom and Dad instantly, unconditionally, but the more work I realized they were putting into keeping me alive, keeping me changed, keeping me fed, the more solid the feeling became. Solid like my name. Something that nothing could twist or break or steal.

My name and my parents were all I had, and they were completely linked, opposites that fed from each other: something that was mine alone, internal, and something that _chose_ to be mine, external.

 _Nami-chan,_ I would hear, and each time I did, I felt a little bit more of the anxiety of having to start my life from zero slip away. For whatever reason, I didn't like myself much. No, that's not true. I absolutely _hated_ myself. But maybe I could learn to like Namiko.

It was a weird idea, but I was done caring about being weird.

A few weeks passed, and on one long, long night, out of absolutely nowhere, I drowned in a sea of blood and fire, madness and fear. Nothing I could remember or half-remember had come close. The feeling overpowered me, choked me so utterly I couldn't even scream. I was completely sure I was going to die.

It was a long fucking time before I found out what had happened, that it was a certain fox's fault, that the village I hadn't known surrounded me was struggling as one to survive a nightmare made real, that countless lives were snuffed out by that same tide of death - babies suffocating on hatred in their cribs, children and adults slaughtered by the hundreds.

All that mattered to me was that it ended and there was someone to hold me when it was over.

My life was calm again for a long while after that. I just... kept existing in a useless and tiny shell, waiting with a weird sort of dread for whatever the next big shock would inevitably be.

There was one, but it wasn't nearly as bad. That shock was finding out just where I _was._ By seven months old, I could actually _see_ pretty normally again, and at eight months, my lost status as fandom trash made the truth obvious. (What did that mean? Where did those words come from? I didn't have the energy to try to figure it out.) Mom and Dad – Otsuka Izumi and Noburu – dressed awfully similar, and one random day, I finally managed to make out _leaf-engraved forehead protectors._

Why did that mean something to me? Why did it shake me to my core, despite it just being shapes and colors? I knew that leaf, somehow, and more than that, I knew that it should not have existed.

When my parents heard me crying, they assumed there was a normal baby reason for it. Two minutes later I was hungry and crying again for _that_ reason, though, so it really didn't matter.

* * *

By somewhere in my second year alive, the number of things that I Just Knew Somehow was rising rapidly. It was a cascade that just kept coming, all started by those engraved leaves. This was Konohagakure, in the Land of Fire. But that was all. I had no idea why that was important.

My parents were shinobi. That was _emotionally complicated_ for a while, being raised by murderers, but... I guess I got used to the idea. They were kind to me, kinder than I could begin to comprehend, and the idea of killing, of a world large enough to _include_ killing, was so abstract.

We weren't a clan, or anything _remotely_ close to that. It was just me and my parents and a pretty modest house. Honestly, I was fine with that; I didn't want anyone else vying for attention, and I think maybe I liked having a universe that was small and easy to chart.

Maybe I should've been lonely. I wasn't. I was busy learning how to be alive, and besides, Mom and Dad were more than enough. Friends... maybe someday I'd have those; I was pretty sure they were supposed to be important. But they could wait. They _had_ to wait, so why pine for something I only half-understood and couldn't have?

* * *

Through all of this, I was learning this language that everyone used but me. It was... Japanese, wasn't it? But what did that mean? There was no place in this world called Japan. Like so many things, I knew it without asking or being told.

Learning to speak it wasn't really that difficult; it just took a lot of time. I noticed that I actually knew a few words already; only a handful, not enough to actually help, but it was interesting.

I developed a strange tilt to my voice that I never quite got rid of, the consequence of a mind that had come with another language already installed, and that made it tougher to pronounce some words quite right even if I technically heard how. The result was that my parents worried I might have some kind of disorder. At somewhere near two and a half years old I had a pretty reasonable grip on the basics of the language and I was doing well enough not to have issues, but I still sounded kind of _off_. No one found a fix, but apparently nothing was wrong with me.

I think that Mom was the first to realize how much more mature parts of me were than they should have been. That started around three or so, on a random day when she walked in on me with a book that was ridiculously above my level in my hands, surrounded by various teaching aids, trying to speed-learn and wipe out my pronunciation issues at the same time. What _really_ clued her in was that it was _working_. Well, the speed-learning was; that alien twist to my words just wouldn't disappear, not completely.

My intelligence was a double-edged sword. I was _way_ smarter than I had any right to be yet; that was just a fact there was no getting around. I knew that in the world of ninja that wasn't _so_ bizarre, but I still had to sort of... rein it in a bit. Nobody needed to get the idea that I was some kind of genius, especially since I _wasn't_ one, or at least I didn't feel like one. All I actually had going for me was a mysterious head start.

There was a limit, though, and I was pushing it by being _way_ too interested in _everything_ in a way that I couldn't hide was sort of more deliberate than presumably-normal childish ultra-curiosity. They didn't know the full extent of it, but I _was_ pretty book smart, and while none of the unlikely connections I made were massive, they were still leaps of logic that no little girl should have been able to pull off.

Dad was kind of disturbed once when I cried over a dead bird in our yard and then accidentally stopped him from trying to explain death to me by very obviously already understanding it. Mom was less affected; she was harder to shake up, staying calm through the weirdest situations, while Dad was a bit on the frantic side, prone to worry but incredibly fun to be around.

"We're shinobi, dear, and she's always reading. It isn't so strange."

"Izumi... you didn't see the way she _looked_ at me."

Who could have known that I'd screw up over such random things? I was careful not to go overboard, but these landmines of child development were _everywhere_ , and dodging all of them just wasn't possible. Hell, I didn't even know why it felt so important to try.

* * *

Watching my parents raise me when I understood way too well what parenting could be was _so_ bizarre. I honestly felt sorry for them. They tried so, _so_ hard, and the truth was that I was a real handful. Their personalities mirrored my own unexpectedly intense nature; in a lot of ways they were opposites, and it seemed that the only way I knew how to _exist_ consisted of opposites. If Mom was a chill, laid back person, and Dad was frenetic and busy, well, I was both of those things times a billion. Okay, maybe not a billion.

I was defined by extremes. Honestly, I think I had - well, _have,_ nothing's changed there - some form of bipolar disorder, or... well, maybe not. I didn't think my symptoms exactly fit what I felt the definition was. There was something else going on with me; something similar enough to steal some terminology, if nothing else.

Most of the time, 'calm' was exactly the right word for me; a wallflower even for a little girl with no friends, always reading or lost in deep contemplation, ready for someone else to take charge of everything. The other quarter or so of the time, I was a human pinball. I'd feel this _surge_ of energy, not actual energy but sort of _emotional_ energy, and it would just be too much to ignore. All I could do then was _move_ , talk, pace in circuits through the house, swing pillows around at random, anything to discharge that feeling of _too much_ _too much too much._

Keeping track of me was a hell of a job, because that manic state – and it _was_ a sort of mania, I was sure of that – could build from nothing to full force in half an hour sometimes. One moment I'd be deep in an inappropriately violent adventure story and the next I'd be gone and the only way to find me was to follow the trail of disarray in my wake. They'd usually find me as a pair, Mom reassuring Dad that no, I would not disappear forever, this was the second time this week that I'd run off and it was just fine before, wasn't it?

That was funny to see. Their interactions in general were just... fun to watch. They loved each other to death, loved _me,_ and they were even a _visual_ contrast to one another – Mom with gentle features and the tidy blue-black hair I'd inherited, Dad with his face like a twitchy human squirrel and short frazzled spikes of deeper pitch. I did end up with eyes that were more like his: amber, although mine were flecked with gold for some reason. People in this world just randomly looked _cool by default_ so often. I didn't have any logical reason for thinking they wouldn't, but it was still a surprise.

Seeing _myself_ was almost unbearably strange for a few years. Like with everything else, I just... _adjusted._ I actually _liked_ my appearance, which felt as foreign as everything else about me; I'd have to be _super_ careful not to end up looking emo, a concept I had no right to understand, but I was going to save _so much money_ someday not buying hair dye, and even if it made me feel narcissistic to admit, there was something awesome about the way both my hair and my eyes could show gleams of brighter color from the right angles. The gold sparks in my eyes, the way strands of brighter blue hid in my close-to-black hair... it all made me think of the way the ocean glittered in sunlight and moonlight respectively.

I hadn't actually _seen_ an ocean, but I could picture it more clearly than almost anything else. Calm and storm, serenity and wrath. Slivers of light refracting into darkness. I dreamed of it all the time. It felt like it was mine.

I wondered if my parents ever caught me staring into the mirror for way too long. If they did, they never said anything about it.

* * *

There came a point where I had to start properly acknowledging the ninja thing.

Chakra sure did exist - another thing I realized long before I was told. It wasn't something I was really aware of for a while, and I couldn't usually feel it unless I was deliberately practicing how. My parents seemed glad that I wanted to get in touch with it, probably because it might help me follow in their footsteps. Until I put that together, I hadn't entirely noticed that maybe I had a bit too much endurance, strength, speed, _everything_ than I felt was right. It wasn't extreme, but once I was aware of it, it was impossible to forget, especially when I was in high-octane mode. I was just physically _better_ than what my brain insisted was 'normal.' That was kind of awesome.

I kept catching myself thinking about how cool it was going to be to actually learn how to use chakra, then realizing... that was only going to happen if I _did_ decide to be a shinobi, and I hadn't. Was I even okay with being a child soldier morally? Was I capable of it at all? Did I _want_ that life for myself? I wasn't stupid. I loved my little slice of this world, but I _knew_ what that world was: an insane nightmare of feudalism and vicious, ludicrous shinobi wars.

What a weird thing that despite all of that, I was actually considering doing it.

I'd kept myself from thinking too hard about that aspect of my future. Honestly, I'd just tried my hardest to be a kid and keep away from concepts like _gaining power._ I guess I couldn't keep dodging those thoughts forever.

So one day, I went out to 'play' and I didn't come back.

It's not that I didn't _intend_ to come back; I just wanted to be alone for a while, _really_ alone. Konohagakure was so much _bigger_ than I had envisioned it before, and there was a lot of ground to cover, so I went and covered a bit of it that I wasn't familiar with. There was a nice little copse somewhere south of my house that was just sort of calling to me.

I hid under a canopy of leaves, feeling bark scrape at my back through my clothes, listening to the wind in the trees and the sounds of people far in the distance, and I forced myself to do what I'd been avoiding: I tried to _actually_ _decide_ what I wanted.

... So I knew things about the world. I felt convinced that I even knew things about its future - I couldn't prove it even to myself, but I knew things, terrible things, and it was hard not to feel some sense of responsibility. Whether I was a seer or a psychic or whatever, shouldn't I use that knowledge to try to fix things, to make life better for people? Some of them _specific_ people who I didn't know, probably never would, but felt a connection to anyway; names and faces circling my subconscious.

This all probably had something to do with philosophies venerating selflessness, with wanting to be a _good_ person, or just hoping I was a good person already, even though I knew I wasn't. There was something dark haunting me, things I either had done and experienced or would someday do and experience, and no one good could carry that taint.

Should I try to change the future? I sure hadn't asked for this, although I still felt a little bit... guilty, I guess, even if I hoped that was unfair to myself.

What could I do, anyway? Nothing if I decided to be a civilian, die pointlessly young as a shitty-to-mediocre ninja? I wasn't all about _intrigue_ and _secrets._ I sure as hell wasn't any kind of hero. The only way I could change anything would be through some silly, completely unintentional chain reaction. Yay chaos theory, yay butterfly effect, so on and so forth. So _that_ wasn't exactly ideal. A quote swam through my head in that odd language that only belonged to me, the words of someone who probably wasn't real: _"Almost nothing important that ever happens to you happens because you engineer it."_

Existing arbitrarily just to see how it randomly affected the people around me... yeah, I wasn't a big fan of that. It sounded fucking awful.

... Time had gotten away from me when I finally pulled myself out of my head and remembered I was a person with a body, sitting out in the forest. It was chilly now, uncomfortably chilly. I wrapped my arms tight around myself, trying not to shiver.

The day was dying. I hadn't planned this very well at all. That was more proof that I wasn't cut out for anything heroic right there; how was somebody too stupid to bring a coat on a long outing fit to change the future?

... At least the village was beautiful in the evening, and twilight was starting to hit, my favorite part of the day, balanced perfectly between the light and the dark. The shadows and silhouettes of trees, the city lights all around and in the distance... It was gorgeous, and it made me feel a little better.

I was starting to realize that maybe duality was becoming a theme with me. It made sense, kind of, when so much of me existed at odds with logic and the world I lived in.

... Ugh, I was distracting myself again. There was a reason I was out here freezing my ass off.

This life was good to me, but what would I _use_ it for, if not to mess around with the fact that I wasn't supposed to be here? I felt an instinctive lack of worth and potential, a shroud of meaninglessness or importance. Why was I convinced I'd never make more of myself? Why did it make my chest ache, as if it were already true?

God, I desperately needed to be anything other than _pointless._

I never could shake the instinct that every day would be hollow and I would be empty inside, incapable of finding the middle ground between caring too little and caring too much, flip-flopping with no rhyme or reason. But that wasn't really true, was it? Some of it was, but I had good times. I mattered to Mom and Dad, right? There was no reason to feel choked by regrets couldn't even be mine.

... Twilight was ending, now, and night was coming on proper. I wondered when I'd be found, curled up best I could against the growing cold. Something about the discomfort was useful, though. It helped keep my head clear, even though I kept slipping away into my thoughts so deeply that I'd forget anything else existed.

I had a completely fresh start - I was a new person. My world was one where things that mattered _could_ happen in my vicinity. Some of them would probably be horrible. If the future ended up coming anywhere close to the carnage in my dreams and my vision-like memories, they would be _incredibly_ horrible and I'd almost definitely die a nobody, helpless in any way that I actually cared about.

Otsuka Namiko. _Nami-_ chan. The haunted, depressed thing that always clawed at the back of my mind was not her. This girl had a long lifespan and an _incredibly_ early start on building an identity. Oh yeah, and her parents were _shinobi,_ couldn't forget _that_ tiny little fact _._

I finally had to accept that if I was going to grow up, live an actual life – and I _was,_ whether I wanted to or not – things would just... decay, if left alone. Time would strip whatever happiness I had down to concepts I could barely feel. Boredom and selfish angst would end up wrapping my life in a prison of melodrama. That was who I was, inviolably, I didn't doubt that at all.

But... if there _was_ anything that could keep this life from being boring, could make it worth something, could make me become a person I was actually vaguely interested in, wouldn't it have to be trying to become a shinobi?

What a bizarre problem to have. The only way I could imagine becoming someone I was interested in was to sign up to be a child soldier. That was the level of change I was starting to think I could accept, if it gave me a chance at... _understanding_ anything.

" _There_ you are!"

Oh, hey. For once it was Dad winning the 'who can find our crazy daughter first' game.

"Nami-chan, your mother's been worried _sick._ "

I couldn't help but laugh at that, and he smiled, looking as worn out as I felt. There was something hilarious about the idea that _Mom_ would be the worried one. Then I just felt guilty, because what it really meant was that _he_ had been freaking out. He didn't deserve that, not in exchange for me having a chance to pick through my brain in total solitude.

"... Hey, Dad? I don't know what to do."

Sighing, he sat down next to me, pointlessly running his fingers through the frizzy hair that he could never get under control. He knew that tone of voice; it meant I was going to open up about something. Four year olds probably shouldn't have _had_ things to 'open up' about, but he was well aware that I was _different_ somehow. There was that societal tendency, again, to just kind of _accept_ kids who were infinitely more intelligent than they should have been.

He didn't respond; he knew I'd talk when I was ready to. Now _there_ was another thing I loved my parents for. I loved them for a _lot_ of reasons, but the way they managed to deal with the paradox of someone with both the emotional maturity of, well, a four year old, _and_ the sort-of-emotional and definitely-intellectual maturity of... whatever the fuck the other part of my mind was...

How to put it into words? I guess they had found a way to keep their own balance around a binary soul.

Where to go next? How did I explain myself in a way that made sense, and how much maneuvering would it take to keep this low-stress? More than I was really capable of, realistically. Well then, there was no good reason to screw around. Blunt was always the way to go in life, if you had the chance.

"I can't decide if I want to be a shinobi like you and Mom."

I felt him twitch, and I wasn't sure what I hoped he was thinking. Knowing him, he probably wasn't sure what he wanted to hear, either. He _was_ the worrier, and he'd know as well as anyone how long the average shinobi stayed alive. Would he want that for his own daughter?

"Part of me _really_ wants to. It... It'd be so _cool._ You and Mom are awesome. But it's... scary. And I'm not really good at anything. All I know how to do is _read._ "

Which way was up again? Where was the bottom to kick off of so I could search for air? I realized my breathing was weird and hesitant, like every time I opened my mouth I was risking letting the pressure around me force its way into my lungs.

"You know that's not true, Nami-chan. You –"

"No, it _is_ true. And if I'm not good at this, I'll hate myself and then probably die. I really don't want to die, Dad."

I could breathe. I was _talking._ The atmosphere wasn't _really_ any heavier than it had been a few seconds ago. I took a deeper breath, made myself focus on _this is oxygen, this is air._

"But I don't want to be _no one._ I just... want to _matter_. I want my life to mean something."

He wrapped an arm around me and I let myself lean over and cuddle into his side. God, I was _tiny,_ wasn't I? It was too easy to forget that. I could feel the pressure receding, the air clearing up. Touching another warm body was so much more of a relief than I'd expected, and not just because of the temperature.

"I think you need to follow your instincts. You're awfully bright, Nami-chan. Are you sure you don't already know the answer?"

 _"_ I _don't,"_ I whined, but hearing my own tone of voice made me feel like he was right. On some level, don't humans always know what we want?

"Well... I'm not you. I don't know what's right for you here, and you know that your Mom and I would never pressure you to do what we do, if you that's not the way you want to live. But you do know. Think of it this way, Namiko. Which path scares you more to think about?"

I smooshed up even closer and wished he _did_ know what was right for me. Making big decisions would end in disaster, I felt instinctively. Couldn't I just let _them_ decide? _Couldn't_ I just coast either into or away from this without having to wonder if _I'd_ been the one at blame when it all went to hell? I _was_ sort of _four_ , and right then I really, _really_ felt like it.

... No. The specter of an emptiness that felt like it had already been mine was too terrible. I couldn't just coast through my life.

"... the one where I'm nobody," voice muffled by his ribcage.

That was it, then, wasn't it? Dad was so good at finding angles to approach problems from that I could never see coming. He couldn't know _why_ that was my fear, at least, but then again I didn't fucking know either.

Well... at least my young-life crisis seemed to be over. So I _was_ doing this. I was going to try. No huge dreams, no fancy world-saving plans, just... a life where I wouldn't be _bored_.

"Here's a trick I like to use to make hard choices," he said. "What I do is flip a coin and catch it, and in that moment before I see the result, part of me is suddenly _afraid it'll come up a certain way,_ and realizing that settles the choice right there. I don't even have to look at the coin, if I don't feel like it."

"... How did you get so smart?"

Funny to hear coming from me, maybe, but I honestly meant it. Maybe being a shinobi who survived long enough to raise children just wasn't possible without acquiring actual wisdom along the way.

"I didn't," he said. "I just get lucky once in a while."

I couldn't see his face, but I was sure he was winking. He shuffled around for a second and I felt a cold, circular object slip between fingers I that were still digging into his shirt. I didn't have to look at it to guess what it was.

What the hell had ever I done to deserve a family like this?

* * *

"Okay, let's go."

Mom smiled at me from across the table, holding a sheet of chakra paper. This... was sort of _exciting._ I had a feeling I already knew my affinity, but maybe I was wrong, and even if I was right, that wasn't a _bad_ thing. How could anyone be disappointed with their affinity? It wasn't like it totally locked us out of other types of elemental jutsu, and all of them were awesome in their own ways.

I wondered if there was more ceremony to this in some families, or if _everyone_ just got called to the living room before dinner and took care of it in, like, five minutes, the day after making the choice I had. 'Clans' just screamed 'fancy bullshit' to me, so there probably was. One more reason to be glad that _this_ was my family.

"You don't have to over-exert anything. Just try to move a tiny bit of chakra into it and that'll be more than enough, okay?"

"Dad, I'm not going to get myself hurt by _chakra paper_." I had to stifle a giggle. This was such a simple procedure, if you could even call it that. "Can I just do it now? I feel sort of..." hmm. I squinted and thought about it for a second; there was more than just excitement there. Oh, damn. Now that I had noticed it, I recognized that feeling. I was building towards a burst of mania. _"... impatient?"_

They shared a brief look. My inflection must have been enough to get the message across.

"Okay, then. Here you go!"

Mom handed me the sheet. Why did I feel like there was extra tension in the room? This wasn't _meaningless,_ but there was no wrong outcome, so what was anybody anxious about?

I closed my eyes to help focus. Chakra was strange; it felt almost like a liquid to me, pulsing through phantom veins, with just a hint of _energy_ there _,_ a tiny sparkly feeling that helped me sort of _grip on_ when I needed to, made it easier to perceive.

The paper sagged into my fingers, darkening with moisture.

No surprise, then. I let out a breath I hadn't exactly been _holding_ , but hadn't been... _not_ holding, either. Water was far from a common affinity around here, obviously, but I had just _known_ my personality matched it too well for anything else. Also, my chakra felt like _liquid_ to me. Kinda figured that would be _slightly relevant._

"Are you alright, dear?"

I blinked, nodded, smiled. Looking between Mom and Dad, I realized they must have been afraid I was unhappy somehow. To be fair, I _had_ just spent like thirty seconds staring at the paper without any expression. Too many seconds to just do nothing, honestly, and that bothered me. No need to waste time.

Now I couldn't keep myself from fidgeting. We'd finished the thing and I was more than ready to get on with my day. Their smiles wavered just a little bit. I had no idea why, but I always seemed to mess up or cause trouble when I was like this. They were well aware.

"Can I, um, can I go outside?"

I had found the _cutest_ frog in this little pond yesterday, I could go look for it again _right_ _then_ _._ It was mid-afternoon, though. I'd need to run if I wanted to make it in time. No problem. Running could be fun.

"Of course, sweetheart, but..." they shared _another_ look, and this one... was unique. I couldn't tell if they only seemed apprehensive because it was obvious I was about to go have an _awesome time_ and ditch this tiny little space for a while, or if there was something else going on, but that was fine. Places to go, things to do, rocks to throw, frogs to find, branches to snap. My muscles felt like they were doing whatever the opposite of 'aching' was. Was there a word for that? I'd have to look it up later.

Dad cleared his throat and I remembered he wanted something from me or whatever. I tapped my fingers in quick, random patterns on my thighs.

"Would you humor me and try it one more time?"

That was. Weird.

"Okay, sure, can I have the paper then? I need to have the paper for this to happen."

Fingers tapped faster and faster. Dad passed me a second sheet. Wait, we had two sheets? They had planned for this. Why had they expected to need a spare? I chewed on the inside of my lip to give my jaw something to do.

It was harder to focus. Way harder. I'd actually never been able to grasp onto my chakra when I was like this, but I was definitely going to try. I tried _so hard_ to find that ghostly liquid, but how was I supposed to do that when there were _frogs_ in the _pond_ and I _needed_ to see if I could beat yesterday's personal jumping height record? I kept struggling, though, forced myself to hold my eyes shut for just a few more seconds. Sparkly feeling, where was that, that helped sometimes, I could use that to tell my chakra apart from the rest of myself, right?

I tried to find it and failed. I tried again. And again. Nothing. I growled in frustration and gave it a fourth try, and suddenly everything changed so much that I had no idea if I could fail again even if I wanted to.

My chakra was bright and strange and the sparkles were so much more intense than they normally were. It was more like my second set of veins was filled with liquified _static_ that sort of pumped and sloshed as it kept spiking and setting off miniscule fireworks all under my skin.

My eyes came open. There was no way I could sit here any longer, I was buzzing like an old radio and I had an entire world to help me burn off this maddening, wonderful high. 'High' was a good word, I decided. This almost-cartoonish mania was like a drug and I hated it for that and I _loved_ it for that.

"Oh," Mom said, very quietly, and I remembered what I was doing. Right, right. I glanced back at the paper, which I already knew would be saggy and wet.

"... Oh," I echoed. "Weird."

The paper, perfectly dry, was wrinkled into dozens of sharp, firm creases.

This was better discussed later though, really. My body was crackling with the need to do something, anything, everything. I didn't want to sit around and ponder mysterious stuff, that was for later and now was for _action._

I didn't miss the conflicted smile on my mother's face as she ruffled my hair, but I didn't really bother trying to decode it, either; there was a front door in my way and I still had to find that goddamned _frog_.

* * *

There came a point somewhere around five years old when my parents were concerned enough about my lack of interest in socializing to actually pressure me to at least _try._ The darker, wiser part of me thought this was incredibly pointless, and the more normal little girl in me thought that having someone to run around alleyways and patches of trees with would be fun.

It... went okay at _first._ Social awkwardness was an eternal constant in my life, and groups of people, even kids, didn't mesh well with me. I tried. I swear to god I tried. They were just so _erratic,_ never committing to anything properly, never following through, and then when I'd crack and kick into high gear, they couldn't keep up with _me_ and I couldn't stand it.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't _terrible,_ but it didn't really encourage me much, either. So much in life was fuel for cynicism.

Then something happened that legitimately threw me, and _hard._

It had been a nice day, really; enough sun to feel nice without being obnoxious, a mild breeze. Those tranquil childhood days I figured I'd look back on wistfully, someday. The group of kids from down the block who I was getting accustomed to running into had wanted me to play ball with them, and I was feeling charitable, so I did. It _was_ good once in a while, forgetting everything else completely and just throwing shit around.

I tired out pretty fast, at least in terms of my ability to directly interact with six other children. Two of them I had never really spoken to, and that bugged me, but it wasn't too important. No one else minded my semi-absence as I went to sit on the sidelines and read. They were slowly getting used to the weird kid who was always carrying around books and sometimes _taking notes on things_ – a habit I'd actually cultivated on purpose, because holy hell there was a lot to learn about everything, and I wanted to know as much of it as possible as fast as possible.

A stray ball thumped into my face. I lowered my book - one of many volumes on Konoha history that I buried myself in - and raised an eyebrow, kind of expecting an apology, not that I really cared too much. It was squishy and it hadn't even hurt.

But they were all staring at me uncomfortably, and the new kids were outright _glaring._ I was pretty sure I didn't have any enemies yet, so this made no sense, although little kids could be real jerks for no reason occasionally.

"... What's with the death stares?"

The slightly bigger and older-looking of the pair nudged the other with his elbow.

"See? She even sounds weird when she talks. I told you."

I dog-eared a page and shut my book. This was not the first time I'd heard that, and I knew I'd be hearing it constantly for a long time if not the rest of my life, so it only stung a tiny bit. What had really grabbed my attention was that having a slightly weird accent had never made anyone seem _angry_ at me before.

"Do I know you guys from somewhere, or...?"

I trailed off and waited for them to explain themselves.

"My dad says your family doesn't belong here," he said. Well, leave it to kids to get _right_ to the point. It still didn't make sense.

"Why would we not belong here? Where's here, anyway? This neighborhood, or..."

"This village!"

One or two of the kids who sort of knew me gasped. I actually had to take a few seconds to really understand that he had _actually said that._ You didn't just _say_ things like that to other civilians in Konoha. Any hidden village took pride in the whole 'standing together' thing, and Konoha was a prime example.

"Is that really something you should be saying?" That was seriously all I could muster. This was just bizarre. Incredibly Rude Kid did not respond well to my accusation.

"It is when you say it to people from Kiri!"

... What? What the _hell?_ Where did that come from?

"I'm not... _from_ Kiri?"

"That's not what my dad says. He says your mom and dad are traitors and he doesn't know why we even let you stay."

Most of the kids had backed away to spots where they were equally far away from this little psycho, the brother he seemed to have mostly forced to come along with him, and me. I was... honestly speechless. This was so _abrupt_ , not to mention vicious. Not to mention that it didn't actually line up at all with what I understood of objective reality.

I was still at a loss, not even really looking at _him_ anymore, just... baffled. That was probably why I didn't see the rock coming.

But goddamn did I ever _feel_ it thunk against my skull and tear open a bit of skin.

 _"Go back to Kiri, freak!"_ was the last thing I heard him say before I got up and ran home.

Mom came back from picking up flowers that I guess were to surprise Dad, and found me crying tucked into the corner of my room. At least she had missed the worst of it. I was kind of humiliated at how... _bad_ this was making me feel. For some reason I never expected to lose it at being taunted by _children_. It was just...

No one wants to hear that they don't belong in their own home, especially in a hidden village and especially if they were me, and if this had been because of something that kid's _dad_ said, then there must have been something weird going on that I hadn't ever been aware of. I was also just... scared, although I wasn't sure what _of._

It's hard to stop crying when you're five years old. It's also hard when you're me. Mom sat in front of me and gave me a second to chill out.

"What's that from?", pointing at the large band-aid type thing I had stuck to my head.

"Rock," I mumbled, and lost my composure _again_ , sort of dissolving into pathetic tears. "A boy threw a rock at me. He said, t-that we, that our f-family doesn't _belong_ here. In, in Konoha."

A deadly, silent rage only showed on her face for a fraction of a second before she opened her arms up and let me flop over to cry on her.

"He said that his dad said we were tr... _traitors_ , and then, he s-said _go back to Kiri_ and threw a _rock_ at me and I ran away."

"Sshh, it's okay," she said, threaded her fingers through my hair, gently finger-brushing down from my scalp to my shoulders. "Honey."

"Do we really not belong here?"

I felt like if I just crushed myself into her a little tighter, I might disappear. Disappearing didn't sound so bad, right then. For the first time I really wondered where we'd come from. Were there other neighbors who thought of us this way, and I had just never been exposed to them? _Could_ we somehow have come from the Land of Water? It didn't seem likely, and if anything I would have expected the Land of Waves to go by my own name.

"Of course we do. Our family has lived in Konoha for..." she hesitated, "well, more than long enough to belong, Nami-chan."

"Are we really from Kiri? Why would he say that? He doesn't even know me."

Her hand's stroking my hair slowed for a few seconds before returning to its original rhythm. Something about that made me even more nervous, and I needed her to keep doing the whole Mom thing, really, _really_ needed it.

"Our family line did come here from the Land of Water, but that was your grandparents, not us. You and your father and I were born right here in Konohagakure, okay?"

"Then this _is_ home, so it's not _fair_ to say that stuff about us."

I _knew_ it wasn't fair. Of course I had known that already. But... I needed something _more_ to keep myself anchored to feeling like I belonged here. I just wanted to hear the words out loud, from someone I could honestly _trust_.

"No, it's not fair," she agreed, and hugged me closer.

* * *

A few weeks after that, both Mom and Dad had to leave for a mission. They hired me a 'babysitter' who seemed... tolerable, but I was seriously unhappy about the situation. I knew I couldn't _do_ anything about it, it was just... a lot of the time I was lucky enough for only one to be out on a mission, not both at the same time. It was probably a good chance to hammer in that I was going to need to be a lot more independent in the future. I still didn't give a shit. I did _not_ want them to leave.

They did at least try to smother me with affection to soften the blow. Mom promised to take care of Dad, Dad promised to bring me a present. There wasn't any more they could do beyond that and a kiss on the forehead.

I couldn't make myself stop worrying, even though there wasn't much to worry _about._ Hell, one day _I'd_ be going out to do ninja stuff and _they'd_ be the ones pacing around anxiously at home.

My babysitter and I came to the quick understanding that if she stayed out of my way within reason, I'd stay out of hers. I tried to learn her name, I really did, but it just didn't seem important enough in the moment.

The mission was supposed to take them out of the village for two days and nights. Two days and nights, that was all I had to endure. I could do this. I could totally do this.

That first day felt like a _year._ I read two books of fairy tales cover to cover and tried to at least be grateful that I hadn't gone manic. Maybe I'd make it through both days that way. Keeping _myself_ under control was... slowly getting easier, but not by much. Mostly, I'd been better at listening to what people said, as opposed to ignoring all conceivable logic and reason. That was still an improvement, and it had all been feeling a little more manageable this last month, so I hoped it would just keep getting better.

Eventually I wore out enough to hide under my blanket and worry myself to sleep.

 _I didn't know where I was anymore, couldn't tell which way was up or down. My eyes stung. All around me, everywhere, the water that should have been comforting and fun was starting to feel like the force of nature it really was, crushing in from all possible angles at once. I tried to find any sort of bottom, anything to use as a point of reference, and I just... couldn't. Every direction lead to more blackness and more pressure and more fear. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't breathe but I had to breathe but if I tried to breathe I'd die but I couldn't breathe had to breathe was this really happening was this really it, lost in a special world that I'd always felt like I owned, a world that was suddenly infinite in the worst possible way, was that how my stupid life ended? My vision was filling up with black stars and I had to breathe had to breathe had to BREATHE and as the water rushed in and I choked and paddled against nothing, caught flickers of faces that I realized I would never see again, and everything, all my existence, was drowning in the abyss. Drowning just like I was._

I snapped awake, gasping for air I was convinced wasn't there. It took me a solid minute after waking up to convince myself I hadn't died again, nine more to stop crying, and another fifty after that to make the shaking go away.

All I could do was keep my mind off the nightmare, off my parents. I'd pulled it off yesterday, I'd live through it once more.

I didn't quite make it through without an episode, but I did at least manage to stay close to the house and mostly within view of the babysitter, who I had a feeling was relieved that I was acting a _bit_ less crazy than she had probably expected.

Coming down was actually kind of unfortunate, because it gave my brain room to start worrying again. God, this had been a maddening problem to have even when I _wasn't_ five. Reading wasn't helping me at all so I took to 'doodling' in my notebook, which was actually the third I'd needed in as many months. What I was actually doing was writing in my personal language.

I tried to do that as rarely as possible for the same reason that I condensed strange songs I shouldn't have known into simple humming: if I wasn't careful, it would stand out. No one needed to know that I read, wrote, and spoke a language that I was pretty sure literally did not exist; at best I'd be even crazier, and at worst I'd go from 'sort of a prodigy' to 'that kid who somehow invented her own language by age five.' Not something I wanted to risk.

There wasn't anything special to write. I kind of just... let a stream of consciousness flow, ending up with _almost_ complete nonsense. Maybe I'd just write down how I was feeling or something? That kind of worked.

Somehow I didn't realize until nearly bedtime that I had spent the evening chronicling my loneliness.

The same nightmare struck again. It took less time to get over it, at least, and I felt way better realizing that it was only a matter of hours before this was over and done with and I could just... get back to my _life._

I spent half of _that_ day drawing random objects until I got frustrated at how bad I was and started chronicling my _excitement._

... But the clock kept ticking. The hour grew later and later. Eventually, the babysitter had me go to bed just so I'd stop bugging her about the time. It wasn't weird at all for a mission to last longer than expected. This had happened with either of them individually more than once before. It was just... a lot scarier when it was _both_ of them _._

My third morning waking up from dreaming about drowning had my recovery time down all the way to twenty minutes. Progress.

By the end of that third day, I was starting to think I was going to lose my mind from anxiety. This could not be over soon enough. What were they _up to_ out there? Somewhere down the line I'd be inflicting this on _them_ so maybe I was a hypocrite for wanting to yell at them to never go anywhere ever again once they got home, but I really couldn't care.

Day four was so much worse. I spent most of it just walking in tight circles in my room, making myself focus on one thought: _'they're coming back, they're coming back, they're coming back, they're coming back,'_ over and over and over and over again. I had to be rational. This wasn't going to be my last scare like this, and I couldn't let bizarre instinctive abandonment issues mess with my head so bad. All I could do was grit my teeth and remind myself: _my parents_ _are_ _coming back._ _They're_ _going to come back._

* * *

They didn't come back.


	2. Washed Ashore (2)

**...**

 _If you had your gun_

 _Would you shoot it at the sky? Why?_

 _To see where your bullet would fall?_

 _Oh, will you come down at all?_

Bastille – Laura Palmer

* * *

I woke from a good dream straight into a nightmare, shoved into a dingy little orphanage practically before I'd even had time to cry over what I'd lost.

Five years in a blur of weird emotions, weird learning, weird people. Five years of loving and being loved by people who actually wanted the best for me. Five years of getting to just _be a kid,_ be a kid in a way that felt better than whatever my mind told me it should've.

Five years of connection, safety, validation, pride, kindness. Of Mom's hugs, of Dad's winks when he let me get away with something, of cuddling up with warm bodies, waking up from bad dreams and always being able to stumble into another room and sleep better in my parents' arms. Dad's weird experimental cooking that always seemed to come out pretty good, Mom's reading me stories about heroes and villains and old fables before bedtime.

Five years of feeling alive, and the world ripped it all away, just like that.

Nobody even bothered to tell me how they died.

* * *

After that day, something broke inside of me, something fundamental and vital. My heart, I guess, or my mind. Both. The older I've gotten, the less reason I have to think there's any real difference between them.

I wasn't used to the _kind_ of despair I felt. Loneliness was familiar, though I'd never had reason to feel it. Boredom, exhaustion, depression. But this... this wasn't anything I could process. Loss is a bitch, and you don't know the meaning of it until you've lost everything in the world and had no choice but to keep on living.

"It's too late" is the worst impotence in the world. It really is.

And what made it even worse was knowing they had pretty much definitely died for no special reason at all. Mom and Dad weren't especially powerful or talented; they were the type of low-end chuunin who hit their peak at the upper echelons of mediocrity. Useful tools for the village, but no one who'd be at the center of something.

Rank and talent tend to affect mission assignment. Whatever mission they died on could not, by _definition,_ have been genuinely worth dying for, at least in my opinion. The person or people who killed them didn't do it for any special reason either, and I'd never even know that person's name or face. If I'd wanted anything like revenge... well, by the time I could possibly be old enough to search for it, the trail would have been cold for longer than I'd currently been alive, and their killers would probably have died on their own anyway.

It was my own deepest fear, projected onto the only people in the world who mattered. Unimportance. A life and death with no value or significance whatsoever.

... They had been valuable to _me._ At least nothing could change that.

* * *

I was in a dark place, mentally, for a really, _really_ long time. I guess that's not exactly shocking. There was no extended family to take me in, so my stay at the orphanage wasn't going to just magically end. I didn't get to keep almost any of my belongings apart from some clothes and the coin Dad had given me a long time ago to cling to like an unlucky charm.

I'd lie awake at night on thin blankets laid over hard concrete, surrounded by other children of dead soldiers, staring at the ceiling, just... thinking of good memories. Thinking of bad memories. Weird memories. But all of them _memories,_ all of them probably doomed to fade away someday.

Sometimes I found myself wondering if I'd be okay again when I grew up, if I'd 'get over it', if mourning would ever end. I hoped I wouldn't. Feeling better felt like it would be a betrayal.

One thing I took a little bit of comfort from was knowing everyone else here was broken, too. No one had a home anymore. No one was happy. And thank god for that. Thank god other people had to suffer too. If I'd been around people who weren't also at rock bottom I think I would have ended up hurting them for it.

... Well. I did end up hurting other kids there. But at least it was in mostly in self-defense. And defense of my ego.

I didn't want friends. Didn't _need_ friends. I was smarter than them, I was wiser than them, my hurt was more real than theirs. The humans who mattered were gone; why the fuck would I try to replace them with anything else? And it's not like anyone was chomping at the bit for my companionship. I was moody, temperamental, confrontational, off-putting, had a weird accent, was resentful of anyone who wanted to like me.

And then, not long after I'd arrived, someday from the orphanage heard a rumor about me that sealed my fate for good. How did it even happen? We were cut loose most mornings and not allowed back inside until nightfall, no one really caring if we bothered to come back on time except to punish us for the sake of keeping up appearances, and some of us managed to connect with kids who had happy lives. That had to be it. Through sheer coincidence, someone who had known me - or at least, known _of_ me - told another orphan that my family was from Kiri.

I still remember the first time it happened.

* * *

Everybody had come in for the night earlier than we were used to; it was winter now, and while it doesn't snow much or often in Konoha, it gets _cold._ Little kids are fantastic at dying in winter, so curfew was rolled back by a lot.

Unfortunately, that gave us all more time to interact, and nowhere at all to run.

I was sitting up against a wall, wishing I still had free access to books to read. The concrete was cold underneath me and cold against my back, coarse and unrelentingly ambivalent to my existence, just like everything else. I was barely aware of anyone else's presence until a girl who looked a year or two older than me was suddenly standing over me.

"I heard you're not from Konoha," she said, because of course that was going to happen, why had I ever thought it wouldn't?

"That's funny. I _hadn't_ heard you were an idiot. Thanks for letting me know." I didn't even bother meeting her eyes. She was nothing to me. Nothing to anyone.

"You're from _Kiri._ You don't belong here." She said this like it would matter - like it would hurt me. Like I hadn't heard it before.

"No I'm not." God, I was tired. I didn't want to argue with a child. I mean, I was a child too, but I didn't _feel_ like one, especially not after losing everything. Five year olds could totally be honorary adults by way of trauma, in my opinion, unless they weren't me.

"Do you wanna know something, you little piece of Kiri trash?" She sounded more heated, excitable in an angry way; she obviously felt like she was building to something.

"No, I don't. Get lost. Bother somebody else."

The girl leaned down to get a closer look. I finally bothered to look at her myself. Just another useless, cruel child. Nothing worth remembering. Hair, eyes, features... everything about her was boring.

"My parents were _killed_ by Kiri ninja. _Your people_ murdered my _family,_ you foreign bitch."

... Time seemed to slow to a crawl.

A lot of thoughts lanced through my head at once, painful and jumbled. _I didn't have anthing to do with that. This is aggression transference. I'm sorry for your loss, but it's_ _seriously not_ _my fault_ _._

But it only took an instant for diplomatic urges to boil away, because _I_ was boiling. How dare she? How fucking _dare_ she blame me for that, when _my_ parents _died_ for this village, threw their lives away protecting a place that generated children like _her?_ This fucking village, this fucking country, this fucking _girl_ _,_ all of it pulsing with barely-masked cruelty.

I grinned at her, as wide as I could manage.

"Good. I'm sure the world's better off without them."

Somebody nearby gasped, I think, or maybe I was just imagining it because I wanted to think I hit as hard as possible. The girl blinked. I guess she'd expected me to take it lying down.

Then she grabbed me by the shirt, probably meaning to haul me up toward her and threaten me, I didn't know, it didn't matter. All I knew was that fucking garbage was touching my clothes and _I didn't_ _want_ _it there._

I sounded like an animal, apparently; I overheard staff talking about it later, and that's verbatim. I sounded like an animal as I snarled and leapt up, bowling her over onto the floor.

By the time they dragged me off her she had a broken nose and a missing tooth, and there was blood on my fists, blood on my face in drips and splotches bisected by blurry lines of tears, and I was laughing, shrill hate-wracked peals of sobbing laughter that echoed eerily off the orphanage walls.

I fell asleep that night with a smile on my face.

* * *

Managing my mood swings became almost impossible, and they got a lot worse. It's not that I had episodes more often or for longer, but the nature of them wasn't quite what it had been. I was used to experiencing a mostly positive side to mania; inconvenient but actually sort of fun. Depressive episodes had been the bad ones.

Now it was both, because I didn't have much in the way of happiness to get swept up in my energy. It was a dull, bitter force. It ached and screamed from inside my head, poison with a wordless voice. Nothing could satisfy it, and it was hellish. When it struck, I ran around in circles in the woods to wear myself out, hoping I'd crash. I swung sticks around like makeshift swords until my arms burned. I got in fight after fight, and at least half of them were probably avoidable.

I wasn't _good_ at fighting, but I made up for it with pure viciousness. I didn't throw reasonable punches. I lashed out at throats, faces, crotches, anything to cause at much pain as possible. If I got the advantage I pressed it with no regard to my own safety. I kicked people when they were down. When I won, I often had to be restrained. When I lost, I didn't even mind. The pain was proof that I could still feel.

Bruises lined my limbs. Black eyes became constant companions. I went through my days with blood caked under my fingernails, and I didn't know or care whose it was.

How stupid. I'd planned on "meaning something," and of course it had come to this, an empty cycle of slow-fast-slow-fast, back and forth, in and out, always pointless, always boring, always hollow, waves smashing the shore under dull skies without a hint of beauty to them.

I couldn't fathom what the fuck had made me think I could do better than this. Something buried deep inside me knew I was great at wasting opportunities and second chances.

Waste was the only thing somebody like me was capable of.

* * *

The thing about being an orphan in a hidden village is that it erases nearly every possible path your future can take. Nobody's going to educate you well enough to hope for a civilian career as pretty much anything but a laborer. I heard almost certainly legitimate whispers that a lot of the older girls went on to be prostitutes. Some of the boys did, too.

But there was one obvious career choice. One that everybody had probably considered anyway. Propped up and exalted by the village as ideal, vital, essential, heroic. A choice that appealed to kids with nowhere to go and nothing to live for, full of anger and resentment, easily molded.

An awful lot of orphans try to become shinobi. Some of them even pull it off.

I couldn't help but think this was intentional. We were nearly prosperous as far as hidden villages went, and there _could've_ been more decent institutions for handling the populace's uncomfortably large pool of children with dead families. But you can't exactly recruit lots of low-potential shinobi to fail their tests and help populate the Genin Corps as cannon fodder if you let your orphans have options, now can you?

By the time I was six, old enough to apply for the Academy - and _that_ was something the government was happy to help with - I hated Konohagakure. This place devoured lives. It killed parents, killed relatives, ground up children and spat them out as soldiers so they could die too, all in the name of the village, in the name of glory. It groomed _patriots._

It didn't matter whose hands were _literally_ stained with Mom and Dad's blood. The guilt lay with our village for being a cog in the many-faced machine that was the shinobi lifestyle. They gave their lives for this fucking place and it wasn't even willing to be kind to their child in exchange.

To be totally honest with you, I really hated _everything,_ but the core of that hatred was directed at two things: myself, and the entire world of shinobi.

Somewhere in the world, madmen I had never met were already toiling to bring an end to war, to create a world with no need of ninja whatsoever, and if the prices they were eager to pay for those ambitions hadn't been so high I might have considered trying to help.

But that's what a cycle of violence is. It's almost impossible to break without ruthlessness and well-intentioned evil. I knew that as instinctively as I knew anything. And I... I didn't want to _be_ that. I was selfish, I was cold, I was angry, and if I became a ninja and I killed, I knew I'd end up making orphans too... but that was still better than the tidal waves of blood necessary to change the world.

I _could_ accept small evils. I was prepared for them, or so I thought. So nothing had really changed about my future, had it? I'd still become a shinobi. I'd kill in the name of this village that I despised so deeply. I'd grow and train. And someday, I'd be important enough to make a difference. I would change the world, even if only in a small way. If I happened to become a madwoman along the way, so what? At least I wouldn't have to care anymore.

Either way, my life _would_ have meaning. So I signed up for the academy the instant I was legally able.

That was how the monster inside of me sold Otsuka Namiko's soul.

* * *

Roughly one year after I was orphaned, the night before my first day at the Academy, I dreamed of the sea.

That wasn't unusual. Actually, it had become unusual _not_ to. But normally I dreamed I was drowning, or that my parents were drowning. Sometimes I'd see faces under the water's surface before it swallowed me whole, all of them people I had never met. Their eyes would stay locked onto mine until I submerged, and then they'd be gone.

But this was different.

 _I was standing on the shoreline of a beach on a dark night blanketed with felt-black clouds. As I watched the tide rolling in and out, I realized I could see reflections of the tucked-away stars and moon on its surface. Overheard the clouds churned, writhed in strange and alien ways, flickering with thunder, but even as the storm's explosive booms shook the air, I couldn't see a single bolt of lightning reaching down anywhere._

 _For some reason that made me angry. A storm is supposed to rage, isn't it? That's what storms are for. They lash at the ground, blind and burn, let their anger flow down into the world below, uncontrollable and mighty. It was wrong for that hateful golden light to just - stay there in the clouds, penned in by invisible forces, boiling with righteous fury that saw no release._

 _I screamed at the sky, taunted it as if it could hear me, waited for the lightning to strike and turn me into charcoal, but it didn't happen._

 _Eventually I gave up, looking back to the ocean, which I suddenly realized was much too calm for a storm like this. It seemed to call out to me, hypnotize me with the glitter and glow of those falsely reflected heavenly bodies._

 _As I walked into the sea, knowing I would drown, not caring at all anymore, I began to disappear. Instead of being submerged, my body just slowly melted into the waves, and by the time I was waist-deep I had no legs to walk with. I let the tide carry me away._

 _Only once the water claimed my mouth and ears and eyes did I realize that I wasn't gone at all. I wasn't being erased or dispersed by the sea. I was becoming it. I moved along the currents according to my own will, and the waves moved at my command._

 _I was powerful. I was omnipresent. And I felt... almost content._

When I woke up, I was actually surprised that I was myself again. Surprised, and a little bit disappointed.

* * *

The school looked nice enough. Not too imposing; somewhat _inviting,_ even. It definitely didn't _look_ like a factory for child soldiers. I wondered how many of the teachers there actually thought what they were doing was a good thing. I hoped it was none, that they were just terrible people, but that was unrealistically optimistic.

I sat through their inspiring little opening ceremony, watched the Third as he droned his way through a stupid rehearsed speech about togetherness and friendship and that precious _Will of Fire_ bullshit. What a nice sentiment. How proactive in promoting togetherness and unity and loyalty to the cause above all else.

After that, the big group of stupid, doomed kids, myself included, were split up into several classes. I stood there in a sea of bodies and I felt... distant, weird, dissociative. There was so much happening, so many voices, so much movement, and nowhere to go. Packed like sardines, no direction meaning anything, the air heavy and oppressive for apparently me and no one else. The day felt impossibly humid. Can someone choke on other people?

I sank my teeth into my lip until I could taste copper, shut my eyes, and waited for my name to be called. Some names I knew might have been in my class, and they might not have; I only had the energy to listen for one set of syllables.

"... Otsuka Namiko," a teacher finally called out, and I felt a flare of static beneath my skin. I shuffled my way into the cluster of students I was going to need to start learning to hate, and then something stopped me. There was something familiar, here. No, _someone_ familiar.

My teacher. That's what it was. I _knew_ this guy, knew his face, knew the scar across his nose. And I knew his name, too. Umino Iruka. A well-intentioned person, all things considered. Important mostly because he played a role in the lives of certain others who were pivotal in wars yet to come.

It was the first time I had recognized an impossible stranger in person before seeing or hearing of them somewhere else.

That didn't bode well for the world's future.

* * *

Here I was, at ninja school. It all felt so anti-climactic, but then, didn't everything? Why was I surprised? While my class filed in, I took a deep breath, tried to center myself, and then booked it across the classroom to claim a corner seat all the way in the back.

It took a while for Iruka to get things sorted out, hand out materials and schedules and all that. I knew I needed to be paying more attention, but some part of my mind was still cataloguing the bits of information that seemed relevant to me, dropping them into the bottomless monochrome well of my memory, so whatever. I didn't have the best memory, honestly, but it was good enough. It had been better when I felt motivated to care.

No one took the empty seat next to me. I wondered what I looked like to the other students, this tense little ball of seething nihilism, yellow eyes glaring at everything and nothing from beneath badly cared for bluish-black hair. That was another thing I felt at least a little stupid about, although I wasn't the only student who stood out. Even six years into my life I wasn't used to looking like this. I never shook the feeling that I hadn't been meant to have this face. That I should've had tamer hair, different eyes.

Years before, I had thought about ways to keep from looking edgy. I probably had ideas that I'd already thrown away and forgotten. Now, though, all I could think was _fuck it._ I _was_ an edgy little shit. Why not just let it show?

Time went by fast; we were all six on our first day, and even the Academy had to take that into account. Lunch break hit. In a better time I'd assumed I would be going to school with some of Dad's 'bento' experiments on me. A surprise in every box. Talk about naivete; now I was just glad to have limited access to anything better than orphanage food.

I ate alone, sitting far away from the other students, and I grudgingly accepted that I felt a _little_ better with my stomach full. I finished fast enough to leave myself plenty of time to stare down at the grass, and then... I did something weird.

Quietly, gracelessly, I sang a song I didn't recognize in a language I had never spoken and hardly even thought in anymore. It was reassuring and frightening at the same time; I couldn't help but think I was asserting some alien part of myself that might have been better repressed, but it felt... _good._ It felt nostalgic.

After a minute or so, I might have started to sing a little bit louder. It was hard to say for sure.

I knew this song by title. I didn't know who 'Laura Palmer' _was;_ it didn't sound like any name I'd heard in my life, but I was confident that it was. It was a woman's name. There were a lot of impossible songs hidden away in my head, and I could put titles to most of them, too. They had gotten stuck in my head a lot when I was very small, but as the years went on, I buried them out of a vague sense of self-preservation.

"... eh, hello?"

Damn, I was stalling out a little, what came next? More of the chorus? I still hadn't gotten to my favorite part of the song. Somehow I really, really wanted to. The lyrics made me feel... well, _something_ other than dull misery, and anything was better than that.

"Can you... hear me? Hello? Nee-chan?"

I snapped my head up so hard I wondered if I'd just given myself whiplash. Huh, a blonde kid. Weird, I didn't see very many blondes around here. Welp. It was probably time to find out what would happen if I attacked another student during lunch.

Wait. That was – oh shit, could that actually be – it had taken me a second to register, because he just looked so _different_ when he was real instead of fuzzy in my mind, not to mention he was so much _younger_ than I had pictured him. This was an Important Person, a keystone to the future.

... But then again, why should I even _care?_ I barely knew why I was here now anyway. My dedication to my vague ambitions waxed and waned all the time. If anything, seeing someone who I knew for a fact wasn't meaningless was aggravating.

Well... I was pretty sure he was a nice person. I'd at least... I'd at least _try_ not to maul the boy who didn't know how not to dream.

"What do you want?"

He winced, looked away for a few seconds, and I almost felt guilty.

"Can I sit and eat with you?"

I blinked.

"... Why would you want to do that?"

Somehow that made him bolder, if not by much. Maybe he was just stoked that I didn't reject him in a single sentence. Even if he probably could've trashed me, that wouldn't have stopped me from fighting, but... ugh, no, I could get through _one conversation_ without it ending in violence, right?

The boy I already "knew" gave me a tired, nervous little smile.

"You just looked really lonely," he said, and something somewhere deep inside of me shifted, the water pressure weakening just a little bit around a heart sunken painfully deep below an icy, dead sea.

I swallowed. He smiled just a little bit wider, and suddenly it hit me: I'd fucked up so badly that _he_ had seen me and felt sorry for _me._ The village's ultimate outcast thought _I_ came off as pathetic. I laughed. I just couldn't help it. I covered my mouth with my hand and giggled like someone who was one straw away from going insane, which was probably exactly what I was.

"Sorry," I said, and the word felt weirdly thick on my tongue. It might have been a very long time since I'd had a reason to say it. "Yeah, I guess."

His awkward smile turned into a grin. Just looking at it _hurt._ He sat down with his own little bento, fidgeting like he had no idea what to do next. I knew _I_ sure as hell didn't have a clue.

"My name's Naruto," he said, as if I didn't already know, and shot a quick glance my way. I wondered if he was waiting for me to recognize the name and tell him to get away from me, but I had nothing to say. Not yet. "Uzumaki Naruto."

"... Otsuka Namiko," I mumbled, and _he_ laughed, which earned him a glare that was... well, a lot less vicious than my usual version. "What's so funny?"

"Hehe, sorry. It's just, Naruto and Namiko, y'know?"

I snorted. There was a little bit of a ring to it. That was worth a vaguely friendly bonus shrug. _You better appreciate that, kid_ ,I thought, and abruptly felt like absolute garbage for being cynical and snarky about another six year old orphan's need for affection. Wow. Had I really... changed _that_ much? I had probably always had _some_ temper, for sure, and I had felt like cynicism was an old friend before I could even walk, but...

Somewhere in the last year, I had completely lost track of the person I was, and I wasn't sure whether I wanted to try to find her again, build another whole new me, or tell him to fuck off and go back to hating everything.

"I heard you singing," he said, scratching his head. "It was pretty cool. I couldn't really understand the words, though."

Oh god, of course he had. That was just my luck. My cheeks were on fire. No, that was too mild. My cheeks were volcanic. I was probably an awful singer, especially in a language I never spoke out lout, with a little girl's underused throat. Maybe I should've attacked him after all.

 _You just looked really lonely,_ he had said, and he'd know, wouldn't he? He'd know better than _I_ did, as miserable as I was letting myself be.

"I'm awful at it, but... thanks?"

"Nuh-uh! You sing totally weird, but I still like it, Nami-chan!"

The crushing weight of the water receded partway with another weird slosh inside my chest, then drained away even further as the weight of that nickname sank in, and I could almost _hear_ myself finally, _finally_ break through the surface and suck in air.

... I probably should have tried to get rid of him. I didn't. No, I _couldn't._ At some point in my life I'd wanted to be a good person, and even if I had definitely given up on that, there were some people who just did not deserve to deal with me when I was being an asshole. I could be magnanimous just this one time.

It had nothing to do with how lonely and starved for any positive interaction _I_ was, naturally. Not a chance. That would be ridiculous.

"So, um, how come you're sitting by yourself and stuff?" He sounded like he honestly couldn't guess at it. Maybe he couldn't. To him, the whole world must have seemed less alone than he was. Why would someone who wasn't him ever be ostracized or choose to avoid people?

"Because I hate everyone." Might as well be honest. I couldn't see any point in pretending to be nicer than I was. "I'd rather be alone forever than have anything to do with them."

Naruto stared. That must have been so far beyond alien to him, especially now, when he hadn't grown to anywhere near the admittedly low level of social awareness that he was going to have later in his life.

God, what a weird thought. Why did I know that? What... what _was_ I? Was this what it felt like to be a prophet or a seer or something? It was so fucked up to feel like I halfway knew someone I had only just met. To have already seen truly horrible things happen to him, even.

"... Why do you hate everybody?" He was still just - _staring,_ wide-eyed, like a foot away from my face. I turned away, examined some kids playing aroung in the distance, plucked a blade of grass from the ground and started methodically shredding it.

"They're all stupid. They have stupid opinions and stupid dreams and - and parents who pack them lunches, and - ugh. I don't know. I guess I'm just that kind of person." That was a lot more than I'd meant to say, but... now that I was talking to a real actual human being, things that I'd never expressed before obviously wanted an outlet.

"Don't _you_ have parents?" Come on, _really?_ Read the room. Why would I resent other people for having parents if I had ones of my fucking own? Other children were so dumb.

"No. They died. Do you?" He actually flinched at that, and I felt a little stab of remorse. That was uncalled for when I already knew the answer. He looked so downtrodden, suddenly, like a lightbulb somewhere in him was dimming.

I didn't like that. I was used to laughing when other people were upset, because I _wanted_ them to be and they deserved it. This was different. It reminded me a little bit of seeing Mom or Dad be sad about something. It hurt _me_ just to be close to it.

"... Nah. So... if you hate everybody, does that mean you hate me too?" How could he sound so _worried_ about that? Even if he was friendless, why would he give a shit about someone he didn't even know?

For whatever stupid reason, that worry cut like a knife. Blame it on empathy or something. Fuck empathy, really. It never leads to anything good.

"I guess not," I admitted, sighing and looking up at the sky because the sky didn't have humans in it. "You... have your own problems, obviously. So you get a chance." After a moment's thought, practically _feeling_ his relief without even seeing him, I added, " _One_ chance."

There was no way that actually did anything to dampen his enthusiasm, but I had to say it anyway, give myself options for an out later. Like, even if this was the mysterious phenomenon of _friendship,_ I wasn't sure I wanted it. What if I got attached? Everything I clung to was eventually stolen from me, not to mention someday the shit would hit the fan with this kid at the center of a lot of it, and I did _not_ intend to get killed for knowing important people before I had a chance to become an important person.

I kind of expected him to literally jump for joy, or yell something embarrassing, but he didn't. That reflexive excitable persona clearly hadn't developed yet. The seeds of it were there, but it hadn't fully bloomed, or whatever. Plant metaphors, etcetera.

"I won't mess it up," he said, surprisingly calmly. I half-expected to hear 'believe it' afterward, but no, that schtick wasn't around yet either. Thank god for that.

"Why do you want to be friends with somebody like me? Don't you have anything better to do?" Even if I knew the answer to that question, it would be better to hear it from him. I figured I should start learning more tricks to hiding my weird seer-like knowledge early in life. That would not be a good thing to screw up later.

"Not really. Nobody ever wants to play with me or talk to me." It stung to hear it from his own mouth, and I finally looked back at him. He had a weird, sad smile on his face that no six-year-old should be capable of, not in any fair universe.

"How come?" He couldn't know the answer to that yet, but I wasn't supposed to know the answer either. I'd have to stop prying soon, but right then it was helpful.

"Who knows? It's gotta be somethin', because sometimes people's moms and dads look at me all weird too." That was surprisingly insightful. Then again, he must have seen a _lot_ of disapproving faces already.

It... also hit a little closer to home than I expected. I already knew how it felt for someone to hate me because their parents told them to.

"... People's parents have said bad things about me, too," I mumbled. I'm not sure if I meant to say it; it just kind of fell out of my mouth.

"What? Really? Why?" He scooted closer to me out of childish interest and I wriggled farther away. I was a big fan of not having anybody in my personal space.

I opened my mouth... and then I closed it again, because... sure, he was six years old, but he _loved_ this village. Naruto was going to become an idealist, the kind of person who'd probably _want_ to reform awful things if he ever actually noticed them, but right now he wasn't. He was a little boy clinging to one of the only things he was able to belong in even slightly.

If this fucking kid judged me for my blood, I'd... I didn't even know what I'd be, but it would be really, really bad.

"... they think I'm from Kiri. And I'm - I'm not! I'm... my _grandparents_ were, I guess. But even my Mom and Dad were born here. It's stupid, right? Isn't that stupid?" _Please say yes. Please, please don't bail on me over this._ I wouldn't be able to take it, not after I let myself be a little bit vulnerable for the first time in a year.

" _That's TOTALLY stupid!"_ I flinched away as he half-yelled it, because wow, okay, never mind, this was definitely Uzumaki Naruto, but also... also it felt _good._ "Who cares where some old people came from? You live here, so you're not _from_ somewhere else."

He said it like it was so _obvious._ And maybe it was. I hadn't thought this through, had I? Sure, he loved Konoha, but he didn't _have_ anybody around to teach him that pride in his village and his country meant he was supposed to despise the other ones.

There had never been a chance of him rejecting me, had there?

"... thanks," I said quietly, trying not to smiling and probably failing at it. It felt - it felt like when Mom had told me we belonged here, kind of. Maybe Naruto wasn't important to me personally, but he was a _person of importance,_ so... I guess it made sense for it to mean something if he didn't think I was a traitor or whatever. "I - I don't... I don't want to not be from my own home."

"Well, you're not," Naruto said. "'Cause that would be dumb."

"Yeah, I guess it would."

I was about to try to think of something else to say, but the conversation was cut short by the school bell ringing. He'd only been talking to me for a little while, so I must have lost a lot more time to bitter thoughts and fake songs than I realized.

"C'mon, let's go!" He sounded so genuinely happy to be here, leaping to his feet instantly. It honestly made me jealous.

He stretched out his hand. I stared at him, completely lost, and then suddenly I remembered what that simple gesture meant. It had been so long since anyone had offered me a hand that it was hard to parse the intent.

I took it, hauling myself to my feet, and he sprinted off toward the classroom without actually letting go, pulling me along in his wake.

... We had just become friends, hadn't we? That's what this was. My first-ever friend was a future disaster magnet with an unimaginably powerful demon sealed in his body.

God, I was _totally_ fucked.

* * *

The rest of the school day was mostly physical education, because of course it was. It would be bizarre for a shinobi academy to have a school day where the students weren't pushed to their limits. There was a _lot_ of ground to cover in terms of strength, endurance, reflexes, and so on.

And _damn_ did we ever start covering it. Running laps - thank god I already ran all the time on my own - running through _obstacles,_ playing some intense dodgeball knock-off, working out, lots of other shit. That's the word, really. It was _a lot._ I thought of myself as somebody who had done a pretty respectable amount of physical activity, and that probably wasn't entirely wrong, but this was still rough as hell.

It made sense. Obviously the minimum required from a tiny ninja-in-training would be more than anybody expected of even the toughest civilian of the same age. It was important, even.

That didn't help me keep up. I was a lot of things, but I wasn't exactly strong. Being kind of book smart and _really_ mean-spirited in a fight was all I had going for me. A depressing amount of students left me in the dust in almost every way while I struggled for air and tried to ignore every goddamned muscle in my body screaming at me to stop murdering myself.

It would've at least been a decent time to go manic, so naturally I didn't. That would probably happen as soon as I went back home to the orphanage and tried to sleep.

... Actually, considering what my "home" _was,_ maybe I didn't mind being worked into an early grave. If Iruka-sensei asked me to eat bugs and dirt in exchange for not going back for more time I probably would've done it without hesitation and thanked him for the opportunity.

Throughout all of this, Naruto never once seemed to actually get tired, or at least not for more than a few seconds. I already knew he had a near-limitless amount of energy, but it still served as a pretty harsh contrast to myself; I wasn't at the bottom of the class by any means, but if everybody actually got graded on their performance out here I'd probably be just a little bit below the middle. The middle for girls, specifically. If you included the fucking boys, then I'm sure I'd come out of it looking even worse.

I'd never thought about how _annoying_ it would be to not automatically be good at something related to education. None of this was shit I could coast through on using my weird brain, and that was really the only thing I'd ever had going for me.

* * *

Eventually we were released into the wild, where most of the students got swept up by happy parents and whisked away back to their happy homes, like the lucky fucking goblins they were. There were a few stragglers, but those ran off in various directions pretty quick; I guess nobody from mediocre circumstances wanted to see kids who had living and loving relatives. I sure didn't.

Almost before I knew it, the only people left loitering in front of the school were Naruto and I.

... Oh, god. I _really_ didn't want to go home, did I? I felt like if I went home, all the decent things that had happened today would just evaporate, that I'd suddenly wake up and find out it was just a dream and my first day at the academy still hadn't happened, and then the real thing would be way shittier.

I didn't want to go somewhere I wouldn't be able to talk to a person who didn't hate and/or fear me.

 _This_ must have been why people liked the whole friendship thing.

Shit. _Shit._ I didn't want to be dependent on other people for happiness again. Other people existed to abandon and betray. I couldn't explain how I knew that so clearly; it wasn't just about Mom and Dad, because betrayal was never part of my life. But I could feel it just the same. People die. People walk away. People turn on you. People hate you. People hurt you. That's the way of the world.

I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to leave. I didn't want anyone to leave. I had a taste of something that wasn't ash and I suddenly felt like I'd die if it disappeared for a single second.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck -

"Well... see you tomorrow, Nami-chan!" Naruto grinned as he said it, too, and I could see in his eyes that he was so _hopeful._ As if there was even the slightest chance that I wouldn't want to talk to another human being again, that I'd decide 'nope, screw that, I _love_ being utterly alone and miserable.' Yeah, right. I wasn't in a place to lie to myself about that, not right then.

"Yeah. Definitely." I tried to keep any tremors out of my voice. Tried not to cry. How dumb was that, wanting to cry over spending half a day in the general vicinity of someone who was _kind of_ like a friend? "S-see you tomorrow."

He started to turn away, then stopped himself.

"Hey, um... sorry for being dumb, but are we friends now?"

" _Yes,_ you fucking idiot," I blurted out before I had a chance to even think about it. Whoops. I hadn't really meant to curse around anybody. That kind of behavior was generally frowned on coming from six year old girls.

Naruto didn't care. Instead, he did something I had completely forgotten people could do.

He hugged me.

Then he left.

* * *

Somehow I managed to walk halfway back to the orphanage before I cracked. Then I hid in a bush and cried like the wreck I was.

I'm not even sure which thing I was crying about. Everything at once, probably. Happiness and sadness, hope and fear, loneliness and companionship, loss and gain. It was so much more than I could handle.

So I cried and cried until I was sick to my stomach from it and the sun was beginning to set, stretching out shadows, making silhouettes of trees.

That night, curled up under a thin, ragged blanket, I didn't dream about the ocean at all. I dreamed about my parents. Not even them drowning, it wasn't a nightmare. Just... _about them._ It wasn't anything specific. Maybe it was a random memory, from long, long ago, and maybe it wasn't. The details weren't important.

What was important was the feelings it contained. Safety. Happiness. Importance. Something adjacent to wholeness.

I woke up with tears in my eyes and Dad's coin clutched in my fist.


	3. Washed Ashore (3)

**A/N:** Sorry this one's a bit short. It just came out that way.

* * *

 _I won't break you, I will not let you down_

 _Open up again, I believe in second chances_

 _Quicker than lightning, whiter than bone_

 _If you can erase it, then I can atone_

Imagine Dragons, 'Second Chances'

* * *

By the time I got to the Academy on my second day, I was angry with myself, mostly for two specific reasons.

First, I had been an idiot to let any kind of human connection take place. I didn't need things I could lose. I didn't _want_ to need things that I could lose. It was weak and it was short-sighted, even setting aside that I could not have possibly picked a worse person to connect to.

Second, and honestly more importantly, I was embarrassed by how excited I was to maybe have a civil conversation with someone again.

Fine. So I was stupid. This was fixable. It would be easy to liberate myself. I'd make some kind of flimsy resolution right then and there to destroy my fresh human connection as soon as I got to school.

... Then I actually _saw_ Naruto, and he _smiled_ at realizing I was there instead of scowling or edging away or just pretending I didn't exist, and I completely forgot to destroy anything.

* * *

He ended up sitting next to me in the corner, which I guess shouldn't have surprised me. That ended up putting a buffer of several desks between us and everyone else; I didn't think anyone at school knew about my family yet, so it was probably just general jinchuriki avoidance at work. But hey. Anything that kept people away was a good thing.

Unfortunately for me - for both of us, really - it was going to be a while before the Academy taught anything even slightly interesting. I can't remember what the fuck we started out learning; I think mostly just ordinary school shit. History, math, I don't know. Normal things, except tailored a bit toward future shinobi.

At least five separate times before lunch, Naruto got caught trying to talk to me. It's kind of tough to get away with that shit even if you're not being taught by a ninja. Also, Naruto... didn't really grasp the concept of _volume control._ He wasn't as intense as he'd be in a few years, but he tended to go from silent to half-shouting with no warning.

I think the only reasons neither of us got in _trouble_ -trouble were that it was only the second day, and that he was himself. The students probably didn't know _why_ they were supposed to shun the poor bastard, but Iruka-sensei did, and it was realistically going to take years for him to get over being nervous about the nine-tailed fox in his classroom. I knew that he'd get over it eventually, and that should have been some kind of relief, but it wasn't; I would've loved to have been able to hate him properly and knowing his future self was kinda alright made things more complicated for me.

The other thing worth noting that morning was that I recognized another person in my class after all. I hadn't really been _looking,_ before, but now that I'd met one kid who was pivotal to history, I didn't even have a choice. It was almost compulsive.

His name was Uchiha Sasuke, and he looked... _happy,_ or at least he didn't look _unhappy_. That threw me for a loop until I realized that all it meant was his brother hadn't slaughtered his entire clan yet. Holy _fuck_ was it ever disturbing to look at a smiling little boy and know for a fact that every single person he loved was going to die horribly except for the one who betrayed him to make it happen.

I couldn't help but wonder what that would be _like_ _,_ not just losing people to something faceless but to someone I _loved,_ and I really couldn't imagine it. Most of the time I could look at a person and think pretty comfortably, _yeah, there's someone whose life isn't as shitty as mine, fuck that guy,_ but not with him. Talk about being upstaged in terms of tragic childhoods.

... Actually, come to think of it, the worst possible person to befriend wasn't Naruto, it was _this_ ridiculously doomed soon-to-be asshole. Thank god I dodged _that_ kunai.

* * *

Lunch that day felt like playing twenty fucking questions, because my new friend apparently needed to know every possible thing about me. I didn't actually have answers to some of them. I didn't feel like there was all that much to me as a person, which was awkward to work around... but not as awkward as trying to remind myself to ask the same questions back even though I already knew more or less what he'd say.

The biggest example of questions I didn't need to ask back did end go somewhere _sort of_ interesting, at least, if personally uncomfortable.

"So, Nami-chan, what's your dream?"

I cocked my head at a slight angle, trying to puzzle out what that even meant until I finally realized he probably wasn't asking about the kind I had when I was asleep. That alone spoke volumes about my answer or lack thereof. It didn't help that he had said it in such a casual way, with a tone of voice that made it clear it would never have occurred to him that someone might not have a response already chambered.

"I don't know. I don't think I have one." I took my eyes off him again and watched some of the sane children exist nearby. Looking people in the face always made me uncomfortable for some reason, so I tried to avoid it any time I had other options and wasn't attempting to read them somehow.

"How can you not have a dream? Isn't there anything you want to do?" He sounded as baffled as I expected. I was a little jealous, knowing how dedicated he was to his own goal. I would've done a lot to have had a tenth as much confidence in what I wanted to do with my life.

"I said I don't know," I muttered. "Nothing feels like it's worth doing. Why, what's your dream?" _Here we go,_ I thought, bracing for impact.

"I'm gonna be Hokage." ... Huh. I'd expected him to yell about it, but he sounded pretty serious. "And then I'll be the coolest, best ninja ever, and... and nobody will ignore me any more." Oh. That made sense. It wasn't any fun to hear, though. I could've been amused if he had made it into something wacky, but no, it was just... sad. Life would be a lot less depressing if orphans weren't so open about their issues.

"That's... kind of insane." Only, was it really insane? I didn't actually know. He had a much better shot than he should've, but I had no idea whether he'd pull it off. My secret knowledge only went so far, and it didn't include any definitive conclusion to the struggles he was going to be caught up in.

"... I guess it is," Naruto said, sounding a little dejected. Ah, shit. Did I knock the wind out of him? That wasn't at all what I wanted. I was about to try to say something vaguely comforting when he continued. "But y'know what? I'm gonna do it anyway!"

Well, that was... better? I couldn't help but wonder what it took to hold a position like Hokage. Determination and refusal to give up, sure, he had that covered, but there was a pretty fucking major political component, and he couldn't possibly develop competence with any of that, right? Then again, maybe he could. If the world survived at all, a lot of things could probably happen that seemed implausible right now.

"Well, you'd have to be insane to run a hidden village, so maybe you have a chance." Naruto laughed, and I tried to at least smile. He _was_ slated to grow up completely insane, at least in my opinion, but probably every heroic person was a little bit insane. I briefly wondered what kind of future _my_ brand of fucked up brain qualified me for, and then decided I was better off not knowing.

We lapsed into quiet after that. Off in the distance, some girl I didn't recognize seemed to be getting picked on by a couple other organisms. Sucked to be her, I guess, but watching it was a little irritating. Like, why not just hit them? Even if you couldn't win, wouldn't it be better to go down swinging than sit there and suffer? Some people just didn't make any sense to me.

Then again... was I actually sure I was any better? I couldn't tell if what I was doing with my life qualified as going down swinging or if I was just letting the government corral me into thinking they weren't making all of my choices for me.

"... You're lucky," I said, and then bit my lip, and then continued anyway, because I was terrible. "I think all I want is to change the world somehow. I don't even have anything specific I want, and I'm not sure if I care whether I make it better or worse, either."

"You'll definitely make it better!" He answered so quickly that it caught me off guard. I stared at him a little incredulously. Like, _why?_ I'd basically just admitted to being a bad person, or at best a disturbingly neutral one.

"What makes you think that?" He couldn't have a real answer, he was just an optimist. It was in his nature to assume the best of everyone and everything. Ugh, normally I couldn't stand that kind of person. If I wasn't so lonely I probably would've despised him for it.

He took the question seriously, scratching the back of his head while he thought his response through. Then he perked up like he'd just solved a puzzle and was proud of himself for it.

"Because you already made things better for me," Naruto said, destroying my composure instantly. _Fuck._ Why did kids have to be so _earnest?_ I hadn't expected an answer that made sense, either, even if it was incredibly short-sighted. My cheeks were burning almost as badly as they had when I'd been caught singing yesterday.

"... Yeah, well. Give me time and I'll find a way to fuck everything up. Trust me." Except he wouldn't, of course. He'd trust his own hasty assessment of my character, he was just that kind of dumbass.

I felt a small, weird flash of resentment, realizing that. It would only make things more painful for both of us when I inevitably proved him wrong.

* * *

After lunch we just had more of the same workouts as yesterday. I wondered when they'd have us start beating the shit out of each other. Hopefully sooner than later, but I was probably jumping the gun a _lot_ _;_ for all I knew that wasn't even first year stuff. I just wanted to be better at violence, was that so wrong? Losing fights was all well and good as a little girl, but someday I'd reach a point where even one loss almost definitely meant death. My list of Things Namiko Doesn't Want was incredibly long, and death was right up near the top.

Well, I could die when I was old and withered and famous, like twenty or something. That wouldn't be so bad. Just... not at _twelve or thirteen,_ not when I was still _young_ _,_ still hadn't gotten anything done.

God, patience is hard. I don't even say 'was', because I've never gotten any better at it, or if I have it can't be by much. I didn't want to learn to fight properly _later,_ I wanted to learn _now._ I didn't want to learn actual jutsu _later,_ I wanted to be capable of useful things _now._

But I also did understand that it wasn't realistic to think I could become a badass overnight. Some people did it, _somehow_ _,_ to varying degrees - Uchiha Itachi, Hyuuga Neji, _actual_ geniuses, basically - but I wasn't gonna be one of those people. If I needed evidence of that, all I had to do was pay attention to how fucking hard physical education was.

Once again, I really hoped I would go manic so that I could at least not care how exhausted and sore I was getting, but it didn't happen that day either. That... might have been a bad sign. It was uncommon for me to go several days without an episode, and more often than not it meant that when I finally shot off, I'd do it with a vengeance.

Maybe I'd luck out this time. It wasn't _impossible_ to not suffer the consequences of being crazy-free for a while. Life totally might decide give me a break for once. Yeah, that was probably what this was: the universe deciding to be fair for the first time ever.

... Ha. Yeah, right.

* * *

Going back to the orphanage wasn't any easier my second day than it was my first. I guess I'd been expecting it to be a _little bit_ less terrible, but it one hundred percent wasn't. Well... _maybe_ a little bit. I think I only cried in the bushes for ten or fifteen minutes instead of half an hour. That had to count for something.

* * *

My third day went completely fine until lunch.

I was minding my own business, hanging out with a person, you know, just... being alive... so naturally some creature had to come by and fuck it up. Creatures dressed as humans _loved_ to wander up to me and make everything worse, like I was a magnet for assholes.

This time it was a bit less clear-cut than I was used to, I guess, but not by too much, and I wasn't inclined to be fair-minded or forgiving.

It was two girls I didn't know, and the second they intruded on my space, I turned to glare at them. Sometimes I could drive people off with a solid glare, even when they were planning on fucking with me; I guess somewhere in the past year I'd learned to be intimidating despite being smaller than almost everybody my age.

"Why are you hanging out with _him?"_ _,_ one of them asked, and I think I would have handled it okay if she had _sounded_ like a bitch... but she didn't. She sounded legitimately confused, maybe even concerned, and that was a thousand times worse.

"Why are you bothering people you don't know?" I was really not interested in dealing with this shit. With _any_ shit, really. The girl looked at her friend, then at Naruto, who was just staring, and then back at me, like it should've been obvious.

It _was_ obvious, actually. It shouldn't have been, but it was.

At that thought, something hot and dangerous stirred up in my chest. I curled my hands into fists in the grass, tearing out a few blades without entirely meaning to.

"You're not supposed to talk to _him,"_ she said, and I almost tried to stay calm. My fingers dug furrows in the dirt. I don't think the girls noticed. Naruto did; I saw his eyes going slightly wide off to my right.

"I don't care. Leave." Leave or I'll kick your ass. Leave or I'll break both your arms. Leave or I'll shove my fingers through your eyesockets. Leave or I'll crush your stupid little throat and let you drown on land.

I wasn't supposed to talk to my only friend? Fuck that. A pointless sentiment spread among worthless people and passed on to their meaningless children. I itched from the inside out just thinking about it.

 _This_ would be a good time to be manic, I thought, to just lose all sense of restraint and unleash myself, and then realized, somewhere at the edge of my mind, that I already was. I tried not to giggle at my own obliviousness, managed to keep it down to a twitch at the corner of my lips.

"Fine," the girl said, annoyed, "I was just trying to be helpful."

I barely noticed I was moving at all, let alone standing up, until my fist grazed her cheek. She managed to move her head in time; a daughter of shinobi, maybe, or just a little shit with good reflexes. I think she was saying something, or maybe her friend was, or maybe Naruto was, or maybe they all were. All I could hear was my heartbeat pounding like thunder in my ears.

Snarling, I dug my heels into the grass, pivoted, hurled myself at her again. This time she was more prepared, and I didn't even come close to landing a hit. Completely over-extended, I stumbled forward, tripped on something, and barely had time to think _wow, I'm an incredible fuck-up, aren't I,_ before I hit the grass almost face-first.

Except it must not have been _just_ grass, because the world went pitch black like I'd flipped a light switch and turned off the sun.

* * *

 _Cold wind howling. Deep rumbles in the distance. The grinding sigh of waves rushing across sand._

 _I blinked, pushed myself up onto my knees, clutched at my head as pain shot through it like a nail being hammered into my skull._

 _I should've felt cool grass against my shins, but instead there was hard, splintery wood. The school was gone along with the students; in its place was the endless expanse of the sea, roiling like a cauldron full of oil and sickly starlight. Familiar black clouds filled the sky, booming with invisible thunder._

 _The shoreline was behind me... a long way behind me, hundreds of feet or maybe even more; I seemed to be near the end of an immensely long pier. As soon as I took the whole structure in I realized that it wasn't nearly as solid as it looked; the wood was rotted clean through in spots. Just walking on it would be dangerous._

 _... But I didn't have much choice, not if I was going to get back to land, and I had to get back to land if I was going to go back to school, didn't I?_

 _I was only a hundred feet or so into my careful, headache-plagued journey when the clouds roared and an enormous streak of lightning tore into the pier twenty feet or so in front of me, blasting a large section into bits. I screamed out of pure shock, then grabbed at my head again as that same stabbing pain returned, tried not to lose my balance and fall._

 _There was no way back to land anymore._

 _... Then the second bolt struck, probably not even ten feet away, and that was when I turned back and ran. I didn't know why the lightning wasn't hitting me - I was definitely the tallest object anywhere around, unless I didn't properly understand how storms worked over the ocean, which was very possible - but I felt nightmarishly certain the next strike would land right where I had been standing._

 _A second or two later, it did. The noise was outrageously deafening and the pier shook and swayed under me from the force of it. I kept running, trying to block out the pain in my skull, weaving around holes and patches of rotten wood. The storm chased me all the way to the end of the pier, smashing it apart over and over in my wake._

 _I stood there, stranded, shaking, waiting to be struck._

 _I waited._

 _And waited._

 _... And waited some more._

 _Maybe it wasn't going to happen, after all._

 _The moment I had that thought I cringed, like I'd jinxed myself and I'd be killed instantly in retribution... but I wasn't._

 _... Well, what was I supposed to do now?_

 _I made my way down the last couple feet of pier, looked out at the dark horizon, then down at the ocean. The impossible reflection of a moon that wasn't in the sky looked like a smirk full of razor sharp teeth. The cold stars like sparks of blue electricity flickered in and out of existence._

 _Suddenly I noticed something else: a face just below the surface. I got down on my knees, leaned in to get a closer look. It wasn't any of the faces I'd seen there before. I couldn't match a name to it at all._

 _I couldn't quite place her age, although she was definitely an adult. Her skin was a very strange shade of brown - a little bit on the lighter side of tan, maybe. Her eyes were weirdly big._

 _But what was most wrong about her was that her face moved to follow mine, and when I slowly, nervously waved my hand over the waves, a hand that must have belonged to her did exactly the same._

 _My stomach lurched._

 _It was my reflection. Except that it wasn't. I looked at my hands in a panic, almost expecting to see them changed somehow, but no, my skin was normal, and the hair dangling in front of my face was blue-black and straight, not brownish and curly._

 _Even so, the thing in the ocean moved like it was my reflection._

 _"... Who... Who are you?" My voice was weak and warbly, and I inhaled sharply at the spike of pain talking caused me. I don't know why I asked that question; something underwater couldn't possibly answer me._

 _I almost expected her to do it anyway, but she didn't._

 _I leaned down a little bit closer, then froze._

 _There were other faces in the water. Dozens of them. And not a single one of them was a face I'd dreamed of before. Not a single one had a name. Many of them were just as odd as the one masquerading as my reflection. Some were even stranger._

 _I couldn't deal with seeing all of them like that - too many questions, too uncanny. Every face in water I'd ever seen was part of my weird database of knowledge, and it was so wrong that none of these belonged to it at all. I figured I'd rather look at one frightening thing than a bunch of them at once._

 _When I turned my face back down, the woman in the water grinned, her huge eyes flaring wide, and her arms shot up through the surface in a shower of droplets, fingers digging into my wrists._

 _She pulled me down into the black water before I even had time to scream._

* * *

I shot upright, gasping for breath, then whimpered when the movement sent another stab of pain through my head.

Where the fuck was I? Indoors, now, probably inside the school if I had to guess, but not in any room I'd been in before. My vision was kind of fuzzy. Blinking a few times helped, but I still felt like the world was swimming around me, just a little bit.

"Oh no you don't. You lay right back down." I didn't recognize the woman's voice, but I was so out of it that I just listened without questioning her. I felt sheets crinkle underneath me and a firm pillow under my head.

When I saw her, I finally understood what was going on; her white coat and its accompanying red kanji made it obvious.

So this was the nurse's office, then. Or an actual hospital, which was a worrying thought.

"What - ow - what happened to me?" Talking hurt just as much as it had in my dream. The medic-nin sighed irritably.

"You hit your head on a rock trying to attack another student. Now hold still."

Oh my god. Seriously? That was so embarrassing it was kind of funny. I sure did a great job of defending my friend's honor, didn't I? God, I was so _stupid_ when I was manic, sometimes.

... Huh. Actually, I didn't feel particularly manic anymore. That was weird. Unless...

"How long was I out?" As I spoke I felt her palm press lightly against my forehead, followed by a deeply weird pulsing warmth that felt like it was sinking all the way through my skin and my skull. Green light shone dimly at the top of my field of vision.

"Oh, five or ten minutes. I'd call you lucky for being at a school with proper medic-nin, but cracking your skull on a rock probably cancels _that_ out." Ouch. Were doctors supposed to be this sassy?

That was... bizarre, though. I'd never had a manic episode anywhere _near_ that short. They were usually a couple of _hours_ long, and I was almost sure none had ever been shorter than _one_ hour.

Then again, I'd never knocked myself unconscious in the middle of one, either. And judging by the now-fading pain in my head and an undercurrent of nausea I'd been too distracted to really notice, I'd definitely given myself a concussion, too. The medic-nin must have been healing me while I was unconscious, or else I'd probably have felt even worse.

Did it make sense for a concussion to just put a stop to an episode? That didn't seem too likely, but I couldn't think of a better explanation.

"God, I'm an idiot." I closed my eyes and waited for her to keep doing her thing. Medical ninjutsu was not a topic I knew anything about, but it seemed like if a medic-nin told you to stay still, it would be stupid not to listen.

"You've certainly behaved like one," she said.

"Wow, thanks for the honesty," I muttered as sarcastically as I could manage.

She didn't dignify me with another reply.

* * *

I ended up having to stay in the nurse's office for the rest of the school day, to make sure I wasn't going to keel over and die all of a sudden. It was boring and gave me way too much time to reflect on how right I was when I said I was an idiot.

Or was I? Was it stupid to be angry at something shitty, even if it was dubiously semi-well-intentioned? Was it stupid to be willing to hurt someone for a friend? Where was the line, and how could I tell when I'd crossed it? I felt like that was supposed to be intrinsically obvious to people, but it wasn't at all obvious to _me._

For somebody with so much impossible knowledge, I really felt like I was just born missing the instruction manual for being a person that other people clearly had on hand.

When I wasn't berating myself and/or trying to nail down aspects of my shaky personal philosophy, I sang to myself under my breath, at least when no one was around. I felt sort of like I had... either discovered or unlocked something about myself, when I'd first done that two days ago. Now, lyrics that had mainly just been catalogued in the corners of old storage containers in the back of my mind would burst into my head at random moments, especially when I was bored.

I wasn't a good singer. I felt like I'd probably never _be_ a good singer, even if I tried. But it was weirdly comforting to do it anyway. Maybe someday I'd try my hand at translating some of those songs from E̬n̴g̗͖͎̩̯̫̻l̝̻̯͉i͘s̨͓͙̖h͈̹ my unknown language into my real one. It would be tricky to do without losing a lot of the nuance, but it'd also be a fun way to kill time. That probably wouldn't be possible until I had easy access to paper, ink, and storage, though.

In the meantime, I'd keep them alive by pouring them into the empty moments of my life.

... God, I wanted to live in a home again. I was so sick of the orphanage. I wanted a _futon_ again. I wanted a closet or a chest of drawers that was just mine and mine alone. I wanted a room with a door I could close. I wanted to be able to write and draw and read.

Fuck, I missed being a human being.

* * *

Eventually school got out, which meant _I_ got out of that stupid office. The instant I stepped through the door I was almost knocked over by an apparently extremely worried Naruto, who didn't seem to grasp that tackle-hugging people you've known for three days is fucking weird.

Like with so many things with Naruto, I should have cared, been offended or annoyed. But I just... couldn't be. Even if it was socially inappropriate, a hug was a fucking _hug._ Those were more precious to me than food at this point.

"Whoa, I'm fine, I'm fine, calm down," I said, trying to figure out the right ratio of struggle to tired acceptance to make it look like I was reasonably averse to unsolicited hugging without actually escaping too quickly.

"I was worried! I mean I knew you'd be fine but there was blood all over and stuff! Like, a lot of blood? Too much blood!" He finally let go and gave me some space.

"Ehh. Head wounds bleed a lot, it's fine. I deserved it for being terrible at punching." I scratched at my head where the wound in question had been; it was basically healed, but it still itched like crazy. Some of my hair still had blood crusted in it, too, although the medic-nin had cleaned off the most relevant areas.

"That was so cool, though!" Okay, _now_ Naruto was literally jumping up and down about something. _There_ was the kid I knew despite his not technically existing yet.

"What's cool about falling on a rock? It was dumb." I was just acting like a rabid dog as usual, except I completely fucked it up. Nothing to act impressed over.

"It's cool 'cause you were being dumb 'cause somebody was mean to me!"

... Something that I'd thought I understood about Naruto - about _me,_ about life, maybe - sunk in a little deeper. How was I so bad at understanding people, including _me?_

I was happy that he had felt sorry for me.

He was happy that I tried to punch someone for him.

When had anybody felt sorry for Otsuka Namiko, in the last sixth of her life? When had anybody ever stood up for Uzumaki Naruto, literally ever?

Never, in my case. I wasn't sure if it was never for him, but if it wasn't, it was close enough.

... I think there are a lot of reasons people gravitate toward each other, are kind to each other, defend each other, become attached to each other. It's not simple. Every friendship in any world is unique, even if only by a little bit. But maybe the center of all of them is "something about this person makes sense to me."

Transient friendships might have less to them - pure sympathy, which is to say pity, or mercenary usage of someone's time or attention, which I can't even condemn. Admiration for something superficial, desire for something aesthetically attractive. But the kind of connection that has the potential to actually last? That requires some level of mutual empathy about at least one or two things that are important to both parties.

If we didn't both understand loneliness, things would have been different. If we didn't both wish someone would worry about us or be angry on our behalf, things would have been different. If we weren't both _hurting_ _,_ things would have been different.

But we were.

In that moment, I was overwhelmed by something very specific and intense, a jolt of undiluted humanity in all its ugliness and beauty.

Here is what I thought, when Uzumaki Naruto said I was cool for getting a concussion while trying to hurt a six year old child who was rude about him:

 _This thing is mine now, and I have to protect what's mine._

... Haven't I told you yet that I'm a terrible person?

* * *

Out front of the Academy, after all the other gremlins had scattered off with their handlers, I stalled for a few minutes before going home so that I could ask yet another question whose answer I was literally born with.

"Hey, um... Naruto-kun, where the fuck do you _live?"_ I hoped that didn't come off half as awkward as it felt, but it probably did. Cursing might not be helpful in that regard. I'd been okay at keeping my language appropriate when I had actual parents, but after they died I'd just totally given up. Being a crass asshole seemed more natural to me, anyway.

"Oh, I live in an apartment," he said, like that was normal. It probably seemed normal to him. "Or do you mean how do you get there?"

"Kind of both. How did you get an _apartment_ _?"_ I tried to sound genuinely surprised. In reality I was trying not to make my jealousy obvious.

"Jii-san gave it to me. Why, where do you live?" He said _that_ like it was normal, too, and the completely innocent curiosity written all over his face made it clear he hadn't actually thought about where normal orphans lived before.

"At a shitty orphanage with a bunch of other kids nobody loves anymore. Who's jii-san in this context?" I managed to get that out, but afterward, I had to chew on the inside of my lip to keep myself calm, couldn't meet his eyes, tried to overwrite the part of my mind that felt guilty for being so depressing by tuning part of my brain into appreciation for the way the sunset filtered through the trees.

"Hokage-jii-san!" God, he really could say that without sounding at all aware of how insane it was. Six year olds were incredible.

"You... _know_ the Hokage?" I guess my attempt at wide-eyed surprise was basically fake, and I did feel sort of guilty about it, but... it wasn't _all_ fake. At least twenty five percent of it was genuine, because having an incredible fact lodged in your mind is different from having it shoved right in your face. Looking at this vaguely disheveled, ridiculous little boy, it kind of _was_ mind-boggling to think of his connections.

"Yeah! He's kinda like my grandpa, except not. You could..." He hesitated, obviously nervous and/or embarrassed. "You could come over sometime, maybe? Like, after school?"

God. Being in a place that wasn't school or the orphanage sounded like fucking _heaven._

"I'd have to try to get permission, probably. Well, no one there actually gives a shit, they're just supposed to pretend they do, but it would probably be okay." It occurred to me that there was a chance it _wouldn't_ be allowed. I didn't know what the fuck I'd do if they tried to stop me now that I had an out, even a small one. All I knew for sure was that I would _not_ take it well.

"Cool! Maybe tomorrow then?"

"Fuck yes, tomorrow, if they'll let me. I guess we'll both know in the morning."

"Okay! Awesome," he said awkwardly.

"Awesome," I said even more awkwardly.

I had no idea how to disengage from being around someone without making it super weird, so I just fidgeted with my hands in my pockets and hoped he'd leave first, while also intensely dreading the moment when he'd leave.

There have been a lot of moments in my life where it was _really_ apparent how much of a complete fucking mess I was, and this was definitely one of them.

In the end, he did leave first.

* * *

Now that I think about it... in the final accounting of any relationship that doesn't end with me killing somebody, they're always the one who leaves first.

* * *

Falling asleep that night was tough. All I could think about was the idea of getting to spend time in a place that wasn't here. It was incredibly pathetic, but just the thought made me so happy that I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying.

Someday, I swore to myself, I'd live somewhere that wasn't here. I'd get to have my own things again, have my own space. I _would._ This wasn't forever. I just had to survive it a little bit longer, or maybe a lot longer. That was painful to think about, but I could do it. I _could._

Tomorrow I'd get permission to go to a friend's house, and we'd hang out and...

... wait, what the fuck did people even _do_ to spend time together, especially in a house? I pretty much only ever interacted with people through violence, and back when I'd been tiny and played with other tiny creatures sometimes, I just threw stuff around and then got tired of it and read books instead.

I had literally no idea how to have a normal social interaction with another person my age.

That... was okay, though, actually, because I had _time._ This wasn't going to disappear overnight. I didn't have to master the art of friendship instantly or lose everything. He was literally as desperate and lonely and pathetic as I was. I'd have to be a complete monster to make him quit wanting to be around me.

Ugh. I needed to shut my eyes and tried to stop obsessing over details, which I was absolutely terrible about. It was already pretty late, and I wanted to at least get _some_ sleep.

* * *

Just as I started to drift off, I saw her again, grinning at me from the swirling darkness behind my eyelids. Wide eyes leering, teeth bared, arms outstretched.

My eyes shot open, heart pounding, and spent a while staring at the ceiling.

Maybe sleep was overrated.


	4. Drowning Butterflies (1)

**A/N:** It's probably impossible to write a fic like this anymore without some elements overlapping with older works, and I'll be totally honest - I'm good at worldbuilding but Naruto worldbuilding is a mess to wrangle. There are gonna be ideas here and there about how Konoha functions that are definitely inspired or just plain lifted from other fics, because they made way too much sense to justify _not_ having them, or at least having my own version which has some differences. May as well cop to that right here and now. I don't feel amazing about it but I also don't know what else I could feasibly do.

If nothing else, I can promise this fic as a whole is loaded with curveballs in terms of plot vs expectations. Hopefully that's enough.

Also, this is another short chapter. I really want to keep them all above 6k, and this is more like 5,900 I think. Ah well. We'll see how that goes, I guess.

* * *

 **Drowning Butterflies, Chapter 1**

"Under flower and leaves are black roots as fine and strong as hair, reaching down into the dark waters."

\- Gene Wolfe, 'The Shadow of the Torturer'

* * *

As luck or inevitability would have it, it _wasn't_ hard to get permission to say out later than normal. The orphanage was probably mostly happy to have an excuse to keep me the fuck away from all the less problematic kids. The general atmosphere was probably a lot better any time I wasn't there.

You would think I'd have clearer memories of the first time I ever set foot in Naruto's apartment, but honestly, it's a blur. I've spent so much time in that place that my perception of the past doesn't account for it being unfamiliar anymore. It was probably weird, though; I'm sure I made it weird. Thank god he couldn't help but make things weird, either.

The rest of my first week at the Academy was pretty unremarkable. I did school stuff, had a couple of uncomfortable episodes - god, Naruto having to deal with me when I was manic for the first time also ought to be a vivid memory, but it's every bit as old hat as being at his apartment. I'm so used to his sort of sympathetically beleaguered suffering around me that it's odd to think there was even one day where he _didn't_ know I was like that.

At least I managed to avoid any more violent incidents that week. I think I knew on some level that I was going to pay for my "behavioral problems" sooner or later, but I didn't want to think about it; I was busy slowly remembering a little bit of what it felt like to be alive.

I didn't have any more dreams about the woman in the water, either, but I was up late every night trying not to sleep for fear of them anyway.

So yeah, week one was pretty good other than the rock incident.

Week _two,_ though...

Week two was when I found out there was a _special_ extra class for kunoichi to learn _special girl ninja bullshit_. Stuff like _flower arrangement_ , and _sewing,_ and _politeness_. Skills that had a lot more practical applications than you'd think at first glance, obviously, but... could that be _any less suited to me?_ Like, at all?

Fuck, I had made it all this way without realizing I was terrible at being a girl. Shit, _fuck!_ When could I possibly have had the time to care about any of this? I barely remembered if Mom had passed on any Feminine Wisdom, and if she had, I'd lost it in the last year.

I mean, if somebody was into that stuff, okay, sure, that was all well and good, but holy shit I had no idea where to start and close to zero interest in trying. Besides, most of this was probably training that would be useful for _spies_ in the long run. There were people who were suited to subtlety and deception and spying. Those people were one hundred percent necessary. But _I_ wasn't subtle, I'd _never_ be subtle. I came here specifically to learn how to be good at direct violence.

Well, at least... _some_ of it could come in handy, maybe? I was pretty sure I'd be living on my own basically forever, and "kunoichi class" happened to cover some basic self-sufficiency, so... uuuugh. Fuck it. If I didn't have a choice in the matter anyway - and I really _didn't_ \- then I'd at least try to get something out of it. And hey, maybe they'd eventually realize I was less a _girl_ and more a _vicious animal clothed in girl-flesh_ and make an exception for me.

... I knew I was probably kidding myself that last part, but I had to trick myself into having hope. It was the only way I'd stay sane.

So, yeah. I made my entrance to Special Girliness Class the way I did everything else: bitter, dismissive, pessimistic, and secretly hoping I'd make friends despite doing everything I could to be unlikable.

The whole first afternoon, I kept an eye on the other kunoichi-in-training to try to tally up familiar faces. I think I was expecting one or two... but I wasn't expecting the sheer number of them. Some of it maybe had to do with the fact that the first and second year students seemed to share the class, but even so...

Haruno Sakura. Yamanaka Ino. Hyuuga Hinata. Something-or-other Tenten, um... hm, I didn't actually know her family name. Weird. Well, all four of them stuck out relatively fast. I was a little surprised that Hinata was here; I would've thought she could weasel out on clan business and get the same instruction from tutors or something, but apparently not. Or maybe she could, and she was doing something with this class similar to what I was doing with Naruto's apartment, grasping at ways to be away from home for as long as possible.

What did I know about these four? A good bit about Sakura and Hinata, less about the others. I hadn't actually thought about it much, but... one of them was going to end up on Naruto's team, and didn't the other develop a _crush_ on him? Weird. I couldn't help but feel kind of jealous of Sakura, as stupid as that was. Hinata, though... not so much. I was starting to develop some actual fondness for Naruto, but not _that_ kind. Best of luck to her on that, I sure didn't intend on getting in the way.

Maybe if that turned out to be cute, I'd meddle a little bit. From what I knew of the future, she got _really_ shafted on that crush, and she was the kind of person who I had the weirdest instinctive desire to just like, _hug,_ so... hmm.

God, no, what the fuck? I was really getting ahead of myself. I could think about _meddling with the future_ when I was older and knew what I was doing, if I ever did figure out what the fuck I was doing. I was going to have to either work my ass off to avoid getting tangled up in the madness when it all went down someday, or decide how to get tangled in it on purpose, but now was not the time to overthink things.

And now was _e_ _specially_ not the time to overthink _romance._ What could I possibly know about that anyway? My gut was cynical at best, and maybe it was just because I was six years old, but it was pretty much impossible to understand why anyone would feel something like that.

Was _I_ going to wake up someday and suddenly be fawning over... over _boys?_ Ugh. Gross. That did not make literally any sense. But maybe I _was_ just being extremely a six-year-old. The idea that I might change that much was fucking creepy, though, and it felt... it felt so _incorrect,_ somehow, like if I ever had the thought "oh yeah, sure, I want to put my mouth on a boy's mouth", it'd mean the person I was had been completely erased and replaced with a stranger.

... Two minutes into Girl Class and I was already so far out of my element that I was confused about concepts I wasn't sure had ever crossed my mind before at all and which nobody even brought up. _Awesome._

* * *

By the end of Girl Class I could grudgingly admit that it wasn't all that bad, and that maybe I had a weird tendency to prematurely assume any new experience was definitely going to be the worst thing ever. Maybe it'd be smart to work on that someday.

There wasn't much to learn yet, anyway; I mostly just spent the day observing people, particularly the already-named persons of interest. Watching them was... strange. Uncomfortable.

These girls had friends. Some of them had whole friend _groups._ And sure, there were cliques and connections to be seen back at the orphanage, but it felt different somehow, knowing these were mostly just _normal girls._ They had mostly normal lives, probably vaguely healthy relationships to each other, families to go home to. I guess what it came down to was that they had real lives at all.

I hated them for it so much I felt like I could puke up hot tar, and I envied them for it so much I wanted to cry, and I wanted to be a part of it so badly that I had to swear to myself right then and there that I'd never let myself befriend a single one of them after all.

What made it different than my usual experience of disliking others was that they were already people to me, in a distant sense. I could dehumanize most other children, but those four... it's not that I cared about them, but I knew too much about them. Just by existing, they forced me to acknowledge them as real, valid existences. It was horrible and fascinating and repulsive and compelling.

And it was strange, so strange to see them as six-year-olds (seven, in Tenten's case), when it seemed that almost all of my data was about their lives at age twelve or older. Sakura and Ino hadn't descended into a stupid feud over some boy who didn't give a shit about either of them. Hinata somehow looked a little bit _less_ broken than I expected, but even more vulnerable, which was saying a lot. Tenten... okay, I honestly didn't know much about her. If anything it was just odd developing memories of her in a context that didn't involve her future teammates being there at the same time.

The class itself was a thing, too, I guess. Mostly it consisted of getting a vague idea of what was in store for us later. I was too busy being lost in thought and reflexively scowling at anybody who got close to me to register most of it.

I went to Naruto's apartment that afternoon feeling somehow dislocated from reality, or from myself, maybe. What a bizarrely simple thing to be so shaken up over. What a brutally gentle reminder of how far removed I was from anything resembling a normal human existence.

My whole evening pretty much consisted of me trying not to think about it and failing.

* * *

Weeks passed. While I wouldn't say I developed a _reputation_ per se, I definitely didn't take long to become one of the kids everybody just kind of knew to avoid. It was... kind of nice to be avoided on my own merits, left alone because I was off-putting and intimidating, not because everybody thought I was a pre-pubescent traitor. Maybe word of my dubious ancestry would make it to the Academy someday, but it hadn't yet, and that was something to be seriously thankful for.

I still got in fights. Not anywhere near as many as I had before, but as weeks stretched into months, I definitely kicked the shit out of a few kids and got the shit kicked out of me just as many times if not more. It seemed like I was somehow staying out of serious trouble, though - was it luck? Proximity to a fox demon? I wasn't sure, but I hoped things would stay that way.

Some of the charm of random violence was fading, though; being somewhere that didn't feel like my personal hell was a factor, but more than that, having a _friend_ was. I could tell that every time I got hurt or got in trouble, it hurt him _too,_ and that was so much worse than bruises and cuts. Unfortunate, but unavoidable. For all that I tried not to care about anyone, I couldn't stop myself from doing it anyway, at least for Naruto.

Would I feel that way about new friends too, if I ever made any? I didn't like that idea, didn't want to be hemmed in by empathy and responsibility, didn't want to imagine myself dulling my fangs to spare other people's feelings. I wondered if it was inevitable. I hoped it wasn't.

* * *

I started to do _really_ well academically. It's not that I cared more, but that I was bored enough that doing my schoolwork was easier than _not_ doing it. Plus, none of that was exactly challenging for me, not with the massive stores of information at my disposal and my desperation to have literally anything to read. Before I knew it I was getting near-perfect marks on a daily basis. It didn't feel like anything to be proud of, though. I actually felt sort of guilty about it, like I was cheating just by being what I was.

When it came to physical education... well... that stayed rough. I did start developing a little bit of proper endurance and coordination, but god, I really didn't seem capable of rising in the ranks. All I could manage was to struggle my way into continuing not to be the literal worst in the grade. That didn't seem like a great sign as far as potential future combat ability went, but maybe things would change as I got older.

Even if I stayed floppy and weak, there _were_ other ways for a shinobi to be good at hurting people. I could still feel my chakra pulsing and sloshing below my skin any time I tried, and the few times I felt inclined to reach for it while manic, that weird, fierce, liquid electricity was always there.

Kunoichi class continued to be tolerable. I kept poking at the fringes of femininity, kept watching the other girls thrive in the heart of it. Actually, maybe that wasn't true of _everyone_ else. Tenten was _kind of_ more of a girly-girl than I was, but not by all that much. A lot of it was just that she was _cleaner,_ probably because she could bathe as much and as thoroughly as she wanted, had fresh clothes when she needed them, didn't sleep in a dingy orphanage. Maybe... maybe someday I could be like that, too. Practical, but not ragged.

Yeah. That sounded really nice.

* * *

"Hey, Nami-chan." Naruto looked up from the manga he was reading, sitting cross-legged on one half of his bed.

"Yeah?" I opened my eyes, flopped on my back on the other half, head hanging off the edge, tangled hair dangling almost to the floor. I had been way spaced out, humming some or another tune to myself.

"Where'd you learn all those weird songs?" Ah, damn. I didn't have a great answer for that. Well, maybe something half-baked would work, considering who I was talking to.

"I made them up." I might as well have, right? No one else in the world knew them, unless someone did, which I doubted. "How come?"

"I dunno. They're kinda cool and you know a bunch of 'em. What are the words? I can never understand you even when you actually sing." He seemed genuinely interested. That was one of the many tough things about Naruto: he was so damned curious. Then again I didn't do much to alleviate the issue. I tried pretty hard not to let any E̞͈̖͉̥n̩̼g̬̠̱ḽ̟͈̖ḭ̷ͅs͚͎̟͚̬̥h̤̠ - any lyrics in that language - slip out around people, but I wasn't great at that, not when I used them to pad out free time, and occasionally to help stay calm if I was feeling bad.

"God, don't listen to me if you catch me singing, just... plug your ears and save yourself. They're not real words, anyway. I made those up too." Now I couldn't help but wonder, though... what if someday I _did_ meet someone else who knew that language? What would I do, and what would it signify?

"Aw, don't be like that! You're okay at singing." Ouch. He said that like it was a compliment. Well, at least I could count on him to be honest. _Okay_ was better than _terrible._ "Do the words mean anything?" Hmm. I'd kind of hoped he wouldn't ask that.

I sighed and stretched, cracked my neck. Too much blood was piling up in my head, so I gave in to logic and retracted myself enough that only my hair was still dangling.

"Yeah, they all do. I was thinking maybe I'll figure out how to write them down normally someday. Maybe even _sing_ them normally. It'll be complicated, though." God, it would be, too. Turning E̞͈̖͉̥n̩̼g̬̠̱ḽ̟͈̖ḭ̷ͅs͚͎̟͚̬̥h̤̠ into regular words and making it all still sound good... damn. No way was that happening unless I had a lot of extra time on my hands and plenty more resources.

"Whoa, so... it's like another language? And you just made it up, the whole thing?" I tilted my head to get a better look at him; he seemed genuinely impressed, which maybe made sense, at least for someone who didn't understand that I'd been born with it instead of inventing it.

"I guess so." What else was I going to say?

"... You're weird," Naruto said affectionately. I snorted to cover up a smile.

I've never actually been any good at hiding my emotions, even though back then I thought I was great at it. I wonder now whether he was already seeing through my pathetically shabby disaffected facade, even in those early months. It wouldn't surprise me now.

Naruto always was more clever than he let on.

* * *

Seasons melted away. Our summer "break" wasn't very long, and for me it was more like a summer exile to hell. After that, fall disappeared even more quickly. Before long I was only a month or so away from finishing my first year.

We still weren't being taught to fight or use chakra. If they didn't start us on that shit in our second year I was going to be seriously upset. But... maybe it had been for the best. My life was already pretty stressful in its default state.

The speed at which the year passed really caught me off guard. Compared to the last one, which had been grueling and completely mired in grief and decay, there were enough good experiences and enough _interesting_ experiences that most of a year felt more like a couple of months.

It was eerie to think that as I approached my seventh birthday near the end of October, I would've spent damn near an eighth of my entire life going to this school, and almost a quarter of it without my parents.

I wanted to be able to think something like, _I'm finally making progress toward avenging Mom and Dad,_ but there was nothing to avenge them against; there never had been and there never would be. If there was something I could lash out against it would have to be the whole world, but I had already decided to at least _try_ not to become a monster. Hopefully I'd only ever take out my anger on the world by being an _asshole._

But... I _was_ making progress toward something: the tired ghost of a dream I'd had a long time ago. As much as I told myself that I wasn't idealistic, didn't have goals, that same terror burned deep in my heart just as it always had. I had to become something that mattered. I could do it. I _would_ do it. I _had to_ do it.

I needed to cling to that dream with everything I had, because it _was_ everything I had.

* * *

If my life's first big personal fuck-up was befriending Naruto, then my second big personal fuck-up took place just a few days before my seventh birthday, and it was considerably dumber. The first one kind of just happened _to_ me. This one was completely my fault.

It happened in kunoichi class one afternoon while the teacher was out. I think we were focusing a lot on flower-related bullshit that day. I remember that mostly because flowers were Sakura's specialty, and somebody must've taken issue with that. She _was_ an annoyingly cheerful kid who wasn't shy about taking pride in her accomplishments, but that wasn't a good reason to be rude to somebody. Being irritated in private seemed sufficient.

Now that I think of it, Ino must have missed class for some reason, because otherwise she would've stood up for her. Those two were still tight, still years away from ruining their friendship over an arbitrary rivalry.

I ignored the bullying at first, because why wouldn't I? This was her problem, and it was such a stupid thing to let hurt her - oh no, she has sort of a big forehead or something, and isn't especially humble, what deep cuts _those_ were. Try being called a traitor, sometime. _That's_ when words _hurt._ But... no, that was a little too cruel, she was only _six._ It's easy to hurt a six year old. Actually, she might've been seven by then, I was terrible at birthdays.

Anyway, I didn't have an overabundance of sympathy, but the thing about listening to high-pitched flurries of child taunts is that they're _obnoxious_ and they're _loud._ Whatever I had been doing, it was better than that particular distraction, and the noise just kept _happening,_ and any second now she was probably gonna cry or something, and _ugh._

"Can you all please _shut the fuck up?"_

The room went quiet for a second. It's possible I was a bit louder than I'd meant to be. Then one of the girls got over her surprise and shot me what I guess was intended to be a vicious glare. Shockingly, I didn't care.

Ugh. As weird as the thought was, I was getting kind of sick of clashing with faceless people. _Meaningless_ people. Couldn't I at least piss off someone whose name I already knew?

"What's _your_ problem?" She couldn't come up with anything better than that. Amazing. I took a deep breath, stifled the sparks of anger building up. Today wasn't a day I wanted to start shit. Couldn't she cut me a break?

"You're loud and you're annoying." As I was saying the words, they seemed true, but then... I couldn't say why, but my mouth kept moving. "Is bullying people really that much _fun_ for you? Can you not find a better use of your time than making somebody feel like shit?"

Flashes of kids at the orphanage, a little boy with a rock on a windswept street. Why was I thinking about that? The parallels were so flimsy. Or was that really all I needed to empathize with someone? Not a great sign.

"So what? It's none of your business!" This girl must've thought having friends to back her up made her safe, or else she was just way too bold by nature, because she took a few steps closer to me. Okay, this was getting out of hand. Time to de-escalate. Not that I _wanted_ to, but I was trying, alright? I swear to god I was trying to be a little bit less volatile.

"Back off. Keep out of my space," I said, as calmly as I could, which might not have actually been very calm. She faltered, and then pushed into my space anyway. And for a second, I felt _outraged_ at how... _pointless_ (I) she was. Where did (I) she get off, hassling people who were going to matter, shoving (myself) herself into their lives?

I want to say I didn't make a conscious choice to hit her. Or maybe I want to say that I did. Which is worse: to be ruled by impulse, or to just be a jerk who makes bad fucking decisions?

Either way, I decked her right in the jaw, because of course I did. I wasn't even manic. I was just (projecting) pissed off and sick beyond belief of obnoxious nobodies clogging up my life. And I thought to myself very clearly, just after my fist had connected and that judgmental bullshit had flooded my head, _ah, fuck, I'm_ _kind of_ _a_ _bitch_ _, aren't I?_

* * *

"Namiko, do you understand why you're here right now?"

Iruka-sensei sat across from me, an atypically serious expression on his face. Reddish-orange evening light played dramatically through the windows, highlighting motes of dust in the classroom air, swirling gently over empty desks.

"Because I punched somebody again?" I hoped he wouldn't take that as sarcasm of snarkiness; I honestly didn't mean it that way for once. It's just that it was obvious that me punching somebody again was a problem, but it didn't warrant this very specifically serious air. Was my shitty behavior finally catching up to me? To be fair, I really had it coming for this one.

"Yes, but it's not just that." He sighed, shuffled a few papers around. "You're a bright young girl, but this constant fighting... it has to stop. I don't want to be the one to do this, but it's falling to me to give you a choice."

Oh, I didn't like the sound of _any_ of that. I swallowed, suddenly imagining myself being expelled or something. What would I even do if that happened? Just... quit trying? Curl up and die? It wasn't like I had the option of going missing-nin when I wasn't actually anything-nin in the first place.

"Um. Okay?" Fuck. I sounded every bit as nervous as I was.

"You have two options. Option one is that you leave the Academy. I'm sorry, I really am, but we just can't have this kind of constant disruption." To his credit, he really did look sorry. Not that I especially even deserved that. He really was a decent guy.

"And... the other option?" Anything had to be better than that. Literally anything.

"You can leave the Academy," Iruka-sensei said, "or you can agree to see a school counselor weekly, under the condition that if there are any further... _incidents,_ you'll be expelled."

I sat there for a few seconds to let that settle in.

They were sentencing me to fucking _therapy._

For just a second, I seriously considered leaving the Academy and lying face down in a gutter until I decomposed with the leaves.

"... okay," I said, a lot more meekly than I wanted. "I'll... go to counseling, I guess." Those were not words I'd ever imagined myself saying. Like with many things, I just instinctively _knew_ that things like therapy were beyond fucking useless. I could picture myself making a mess out of 'counseling' so clearly that it almost felt like I'd done it before.

"Good. I'm glad to hear that, I really am. I don't want to lose such a promising student." He looked every bit as relieved as I didn't feel. At least that made one of us.

It seemed incredibly unfair that the straw that broke the school's back was me punching somebody over _Haruno Sakura,_ or more specifically over the irritation of having to overhear people be stupid at her. Couldn't this have been about, like, _anything_ else? I would've felt just a tiny bit less terrible if I'd been doing something I gave a shit about.

* * *

On my way out, I ran into Sakura herself, like a curse that hadn't even waited an hour to flare up again. Had she... waited around to talk to me? I couldn't think of any other reason for her to still be here.

"Um... hi?" I had to stop myself from wincing at how tired I sounded. This was not a moment when I particularly wanted to show weakness, or a person I wanted to show it to, but I probably wasn't going to be able to avoid it.

"Are you okay?" She stared at me with shiny child-eyes, like she had been worried or something. Why would she care, though?

"... Yes? Kind of? Why?" Ugh. That middle part hadn't been necessary, What was wrong with me?

"Well, you got in trouble, and also you look like you're about to cry." Fuck, come on! Why was that necessary? I was trying my hardest not to acknowledge it as it was, and having someone else point it out made that pretty hard. I was about to snap at her, but she continued before I had the chance. "I'm sorry for that, by the way. That you got in trouble because of me."

... Huh. For some reason, I hadn't expected that. Maybe I should've.

"I didn't do it for you. I'm just a - I was just annoyed at her for being loud." I knew even as I said it that it was only half true, that at least a little of it _had_ been about her, and some of it had been about -

"I know, but you still helped me!" I was a little taken aback by her earnestness. Apparently at this age she had that in common with Naruto, or maybe it was just more normal for little kids to be earnest than to be whatever the hell I was. "You didn't get in _too_ much trouble, right?"

She sounded so concerned that I almost felt grateful to her. Unfortunately...

"Uh... about that... I have to go to counseling? And not start any more fights or else I'll get expelled."

Sakura looked completely horrified. Did she think this was her fault somehow? If I hadn't started shit today I would've probably done it tomorrow or the day after for some other equally stupid cluster of reasons.

"I'm so sorry! This is -" Nope, not dealing with that. Nobody else was allowed to take credit for any of my accomplishments, even if they were bad ones.

"Don't. Just... no. It's _my_ fuck-up. I do this shit all the time, it was inevitable."

She looked almost as horrified at my language as she had at the idea that I might be expelled. Right, I kept forgetting that was unusual behavior. I didn't think I'd ever bother to try to speak more properly, but I ought to at least get used to people's reactions.

"I still want to make it up to you somehow," she said, because apparently she didn't have, like, _any_ sense of self-worth. That seemed off to me, somehow, because my memories of the future didn't paint her like someone who sold herself cheaply.

... No, wait. Was I stupid or something? This was a girl who was so desperate to be loved by somebody that she clung onto her first crush even when he hated her, threw away her best friend for the same empty obsession. Nobody who could behave like that so _consistently_ could actually _like herself._ I wondered what had caused this. I didn't _think_ she had a bad home life; in fact I was pretty sure she didn't. Were some people just born that way?

"You seriously don't have to." I didn't want to think about Sakura's shitty mental state. All I wanted to do was go lock myself in Naruto's bathroom and cry about the stupid therapy thing. "In fact, I'd _rather_ you..." I trailed off mid-sentence, because she was downright _wilting_ as I spoke. Fuck. Why was this happening to me? Why was I starting to feel bad about _her_ feeling bad about me paying for my own mistakes? This was so dumb.

"You'd... what?", she said, eyes downcast, hands clasped together.

God. Damn. _It._

"... Never mind. I guess... if you _really_ want to, you can help me with my stupid ikebana homework or something? I'm kinda terrible at it." I was really reaching, but that was the only favor I could think of that made sense, and I was in too deep now, I'd feel guilty about it later if I left her hanging.

"Okay, sure!" She sounded so happy about it. Maybe she _didn't_ have many friends. Maybe it was basically just Ino. Idly watching her off and on this year, I didn't _exactly_ get that impression, but I had no way of knowing whether or not someone else's friendships were shallow. Ino might have been the only _close_ friend in her life.

Well, that was... not as sad as Naruto's life, or even close to it, but it wasn't great either. It made sense that someone like that would still want more human connections.

... Shit, this was going to become a _friend_ thing, wasn't it? It totally was unless I did something to stop it, but... against all logic, I kind of didn't _want_ to stop it. I was starting to think I had some sort of _problem,_ like if somebody found the slightest chink in my armor they could slither on through and then I was fucked. Was I overly sympathetic to lonely people, or was I really just that pathetic?

* * *

When I got (home) to Naruto's apartment, I had to explain what happened, at least with the school; I didn't want to get into the Sakura stuff at all. He was every bit as worried as I expected him to be, and I hated it every bit as much as I hated anything I did to make him feel bad, which was honestly a lot of things, at least indirectly.

At least I wasn't expelled _yet._ This wasn't the end of the world. I'd just have to behave like a civilized person and fake my way through a trained school counselor. No big deal. Not like I had a bad temper and zero ability to control myself or anything! It would be fine! Totally fine.

I didn't even get much time to process how screwed I was while still in a safe place, since I'd been held up late by Iruka-sensei _and_ the new aspiring friend creature, and before I knew it I had to get back to the orphanage so I didn't risk any kind of punishment.

Just as I was about to leave, something dark and weird surged up from the back of my mind. I should've left it alone, but... I felt like I had to say something for my own peace of mind.

"Hey, Naruto-kun. Am I... doing something wrong by being your friend?" A stupid question, probably, and I knew that even if the answer was _yes_ he wouldn't admit it, but I couldn't help myself.

"Of course not, duh! Why would you be?"

I thought of the girl I'd punched, how I knew for a fact she was completely inconsequential to the village's future, that the simple fact that I didn't know her name was enough to prove she was meaningless.

Then I thought of how I'd never seen _myself_ in any of my images of things to come, not a single solitary time.

"... Eh, no reason. Goodnight!"


	5. Drowning Butterflies (2)

**A/N:** GUESS WHO'S NOT DEAD, BITCHES

So, Reviewer Xxser3ndipityxX suggested that if I borrow or take heavy inspiration from any worldbuilding shit other fics have done or done similar things to, I should mention it; that seems super wise, so I'll try to, as much as possible. I'll just kick that off with me at least personally first encountering the idea of a specific 'kunoichi class' from Dreaming of Sunshine, to probably nobody's surprise. It's more or less the same idea here, although in Burial at Sea it's actually mandatory instead of opt-in, because Burial at Sea has a main character who didn't _want_ to do it, and suffering sustains me.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention: I didn't, like, _fuck up_ by having everyone enter the academy at 6, that was deliberate. It felt like a more reasonable age than 5. So academy life is a year shorter, here. The timeline hasn't changed in general, they just spent one more year doing whatever the fuck kids who aren't at ninja school yet do. (In Namiko's case, that activity is "decaying emotionally, morally, and spiritually.") It also does mean that the Uchiha massacre will be happening quicker in this fic than it would otherwise, since we're already a year closer to it.

For the record, I'm not totally happy with this chapter, but I really wanted to get something out there.

P.S. Sorry this one took so outrageously long. You know when life just Keeps Happening? And then it punches you in the boob - _twice, same spot -_ kicks your legs out from under you, and just pisses right into your eyes? Yeah. Endlessly bad sleep, various flavors of drama, mental health adventures, illness, busy pouring what little energy I've had into other projects, etc etc. I'm only just finally getting back into this. Don't expect the next one to go up overnight, but hopefully it won't be _that_ long of a delay again. I have a new laptop, and that helps. Writing at my desk fucking sucks; I think it's mental association with a lifetime of failures. I'm already doing better now that I can write other places, thank god.

In any case, thanks for your patience. I appreciate it a lot.

* * *

 _First day in a victim's chair, every surface replaced_

 _Can help to keep you fair for a corrected gaze_

 _Every feature displayed will match your crowd_

 _A loss of innocence, one hand to wash the other_

 _Be a perfectionist, you're nothing if you're just another_

\- The Birthday Massacre, 'Goodnight'

* * *

"I believe that it's helpful to start from the big picture and work inward. So, tell me, Miss Otsuka: why do you turn to violence so quickly when upset?"

I stared at my 'counselor' for a few long seconds before I even tried to answer, still kind of reeling from the fact that this was seriously happening to me. Being picked apart by someone who didn't even know me was incredibly unappealing, even as the price of pursuing my dreams.

When I opened my mouth to answer, though, I realized that I didn't really _have_ an answer. Everything I could think to say was so obvious that it felt meaningless. But I supposed I had to start _somewhere_ , so...

"Because I'm angry. It's not exactly complicated." She scribbled something down on a little notepad, as if I'd said anything worth recording yet. Somehow seeing that made my blood boil, like I was being condescended to with every motion.

"And why are you angry? I realize that must sound condescending," yep, it sure did, "but I don't know you yet. What seems obvious to you is completely unknown to me." Fuck her. Fuck her for sounding almost reasonable.

"Why wouldn't I be? My life is sh - stupid, the world is stupid, people are stupid. It'd practically be easier to list reasons I'm _not_ angry."

"You could do that, if you wanted," she said, throwing me for a loop. Was she fucking with me? That was a figure of _speech!_ It wasn't... _ugh._

"Yeah, well, I don't want to. Look, it's... I really don't know what you want from me. I had a bad life. It sounds whiny when I put it that way, but it's true. This _isn't complicated."_

"Very few things in life are uncomplicated." Back to the scribbling. It was tough to resist the urge to just get up, walk over, and smack the pen out of her hand. "Tell me about your bad life, then, and we'll start figuring this out." God. She sounded like she really didn't know what a smug asshole she was. I wondered how much practice she had talking to troubled 'genius' kids. Clearly she had _some._

Not that I really counted as a "genius." I had the weirdly high intelligence – sort of, in own dumb animal way – but in general geniuses were actually good at things.

"... Okay. Fine. You want my story? I've got plenty of time to waste anyway."

So I told her. Well, I told her as much as I could without exposing any of my weird secrets. It still took me most of my entire hour-long session to even get a vague picture of the whole nightmare across.

I talked about being young and too smart to relate to anyone else, about my family, about my family - _ending,_ about the orphanage, about how it felt to have other children call me a traitor for my blood. And the more I talked, the worse I felt, like every piece of myself I had to show was raw flesh dunked in saltwater. The more I talked, the less I felt like I understood about myself, my life... about _anything,_ really.

I hated every second of it, but she was right about one thing: this _was_ complicated.

* * *

With the start of our second year, we _finally_ got going on the basics of taijutsu. I was excited - like, really intensely excited. _This_ was why I was here. I was ready to learn to kick ass, and I didn't mind getting my ass kicked along the way. I was ready to struggle and sweat and _see results for it._

... After a couple months of being passable at throwing shit around, bad at dodging and blocking, and even worse at _hitting anything,_ I was a lot less excited.

I don't know if you've ever tried to learn martial arts, but if you have, you probably know that it fucking sucks, and it's exhausting, and it's boring, and it's humiliating. Or maybe you're one of those assholes who's good at it, I don't know. I shouldn't assume.

The thing is, I guess, that there are some things that some people just aren't going to be any good at no matter how hard they work for it. Different people have different strengths and weaknesses. That should be obvious, but... when you really, really want something you can't have, you tend to _ignore_ the obvious as long as you can, and then get really embarrassingly depressed when reality catches up to you.

So yeah. That's me and like ninety percent of taijutsu. I've gotten to a point now where I'm sort of competent at pretty much two related skills, now, one of which actually _is_ throwing shit at people, and the rest of it... well, any work I've put into that has been to desperately try to make my glaring weaknesses a tiny bit less drastic.

I don't mind getting my ass kicked, I really don't, but I can't fucking _stand_ feeling helpless, and I can't stand feeling like I'm treading water.

Naruto was better at taijutsu, which should have always been obvious but somehow surprised me just a little bit anyway. Maybe some part of my mind had expected that I'd actually be able to hold my own, prove my worth immediately. What a ridiculous idea.

I tried to just be happy for him, and I'm sure part of me was. I guess the important part is that I don't think I let it show. There has to be limit on how much of an asshole somebody is _somewhere,_ and I drew my line at letting my bullshit hurt him.

So for quite a while the only notably new things in my life were my constant failure to learn how to fight, and more unsettlingly, Sakura's continued existence. She sure did... exist, and she sure did seem intent on bothering me all the time. It wasn't like I was her only option, so what appeal was she seeing here? I could understand why Naruto liked me; he had nobody to compare me to yet, he was lonely and unhappy and needed something, anything to cling onto. I could relate.

So why Sakura? Was she really that unhappy, or was it normal for children to try to befriend caustic, obnoxious assholes? So what if she felt like she owed me? We were _seven,_ couldn't she just let go? Couldn't she just stop bugging me and asking questions and trying to play games and talking about flowers and other dumb shit?

Couldn't she just stop trying to trick me into thinking I might get to be human someday?

* * *

 _"Shit!"_

I stumbled backward, trying to keep my footing on a patch of muddy ground, resisting the urge to grab the shoulder Sakura had just punched and whine like a baby. There was no time for that, because she was on me again... well, not _actually_ instantly, but by our low standards it was close enough that I just barely managed to weave out of the way of her follow-up. I went for a gut punch and only clipped her side, but the little grunt of pain it got out of her was still kind of satisfying.

Sakura seemed to be keeping her balance at first, pivoting on one leg to deliver a sloppy half-trained low kick. I guess she was trying to knock my leg out from under me. Unfortunately for her, she was just as bad at dealing with slippery terrain as I was, and two seconds later she was on her ass.

Sparring was terrible enough on a good day, and sparring in the rain somehow managed to be even worse. At least it was working in my favor for once, though. She wasn't exactly doing a great job at getting back on her feet.

I couldn't think of any appropriate technique or whatever to apply here, not on like, month three or four of taijutsu training, so I just fell back on an old classic of mine and threw myself on top of her, making a vague concession to form by at least _punching_ her in the face instead of biting or clawing. She twisted her head out of the way, let my fist sail by and squish into the mud, slammed a knee up into my stomach, grabbed me by the arm and hauled me off of her.

Fuck, if she got on top of _me_ it was basically over, I was terrible at getting out of pins, even clumsy untrained ones. I couldn't let that happen. She was wide open as she rolled over onto her side and I was pissed off and already done trying to be at all respectable, so I swept my hand through the mud and managed to splatter some on her face. It didn't really even get in her _eyes,_ but it was better than nothing.

I punched her somewhere, I couldn't really even tell where, shoved her over onto her back again, scrambled onto all fours and straddled her waist. This was my _second_ attempt at hitting a more or less helpless target in the face today, and I tried to make it count, backhanding her across the cheek. I wanted to believe it'd bruise or at least split the inside of her lip, but these days I wasn't doing so hot at actually damaging _anybody,_ so it was probably wishful thinking.

"I give up, I give up!"

I paused, not really having expected that at all for some reason, my arm still raised for another strike.

"Wait, really?"

She glared up at me, wiping mud off her face, and didn't even have the courtesy to be visibly injured.

"Yes, really. Get off me already."

I didn't have it in me to actually stand up; I was totally spent already. Instead, I just rolled over into the mud again, staining my dirty clothes even more thoroughly, stared up at the dim sky and felt the rain on my skin.

"This sucks," Sakura muttered, "Rain sucks."

I was feeling a lot better than her about the outcome. This was a completely pathetic and embarrassing "fight" between two impressively useless children with no idea what they were doing, so there was kind of a limit to how proud I could be of myself, but hey, it _was_ a victory, right? I had defeated another human being in a fistfight for once, even if only barely, and I needed that to feel positive. I was doing that a lot lately, slowly becoming accustomed to a very specific tired and bitter emotion, the ugly, desperate, _banal_ struggle to be content with even the tiniest scrap of satisfaction or progress.

That's the perfect snapshot of my emotional state at that age, really: "I have to find a way to be happy that my big achievement of the month is a single sparring victory against _Haruno Sakura_ of all people." The bar for success in my life was so low it might as well have been buried underground, and it still took everything I had to clear it.

But... it's true that it wasn't literally nothing. When you're starving to death, finding a bowl with a few grains of rice in it _has_ to be worth celebrating, even though it doesn't really change anything at all.

* * *

Anyway, sparring or whatever aside, it was fucked up actually spending time around a normal-ish person, seriously unsettling to orbit so close to a cohesive universe. Sakura was somebody whose parents still existed, somebody who had time to care about things like hair and clothes and - god, I don't know, _little girl stuff,_ I guess. That's not to say she was the luckiest person in the world, but...

"Namiko-chan, do you have a favorite flower?"

... well, she had space in her head to ask questions like _that._

I dog-eared the page in my history textbook I'd been reading, closed it. This was something I'd probably literally never asked myself. The first thing that came to mind was an urge to just be as edgy as possible and say higanbana, but no, I ought to give it a little bit of effort. After some thought, I arrived at a conclusion that was... maybe _slightly_ less edgy, but not by a lot.

"Shiragiku, probably." It was weird. I should've hated them, probably, as a reminder of what I'd lost, but... When my parents died, there hadn't exactly been a proper funeral, but there was one image that remained in my mind, engraved in some deep pocket of memory: a single flower left by the front door of my house, the last time I ever saw it.

There was a horrible longing attached to that image, but it still felt like a symbol of my final glimpse of home, and there was no way I could ever hate _that._ I wondered now, years later with the wound a tiny bit less raw, who the fuck had even left it there. Seriously, who had cared enough that my family was dead to leave a flower but not enough to _help me?_

Well... it might not have helped much, but it gave me an anchor point for a memory, and that was valuable in its own way. Enough that I could honestly say I was a little bit grateful.

We lasped into a weird silence. I guess I'd expected her to just... volunteer her own answer to her question. Naruto would've leapt into it. Or maybe I was making excuses for my own laziness in conversation, who knows.

"Do you have one?" I finally asked, in a feeble attempt to do the friendship thing correctly.

"I'm... not really sure," she said, which surprised me a little. A little part of me had thought she was going to be conceited and say sakura, but mostly I just found it weird that her best friend's family owned a flower shop and she still didn't have an opinion. "Sometimes I think I do, but then I change my mind right away. I think I'm bad at having favorite things."

I tried not to laugh out loud and just barely managed it. She'd be over _that_ problem soon enough.

But actually... I could relate, sort of. It had been a long time since I thought about my life in terms of things I liked, instead of in terms of things I _didn't_ like. Sometimes I felt like caring about anything specific was a waste of effort. I didn't know if I _could_ have a favorite thing. It didn't feel like it, but... did clinging to something so desperately that I'd rather die than let it go count for making it my favorite?

"... I think I'm bad at it too," I said, and wondered whether or not that was even true.

* * *

So yeah. Sakura was strange like that. I couldn't understand at all how someone could care about something like _flowers,_ not if they weren't useful ones that could be made into poisons or medicines, but it was kind of nice, seeing her get to care about things. I should've been angry about it - would've been, if I didn't know her. But she'd made herself real to me, and I guess I was just weak like that.

I'm not a good person, or a nice person, not by a long shot. But... when somebody's wormed their way into feeling real to me, I start wanting them to be happy or I start wanting to _(_ _kill them_ _)_ kick their ass, depending on whether they're real in a good way or real in a bad way. There's practically no in-between. But then again, why would there be? This is me we're talking about. Zero and one, off and on. That's all there is.

The really _really_ weird thing about Sakura hanging around me sometimes was that it meant she ran into Naruto. That wasn't supposed to happen for a _lot_ of years, was it? And wasn't Sakura supposed to despise him, at least for a while?

Instead... it was awkward, sure, but she was _seven_ _,_ and it's not _that_ hard for a seven-year-old to convince another seven-year-old who thinks she's cool for some reason that ostracizing somebody without any obvious cause was shitty, actually, and that sometimes adults could be wrong. So it was awkward for a while, and then it just... wasn't. All of a sudden, Naruto and I _both_ had two friends instead of one.

That was good. I was happy about _that_ aspect of it. Because he deserved to have more than one nice thing in his universe. I was happy for him, apathetic for myself, and that was all. That was it. That was _all._

... Yeah, sure it was. Because I was such a magnanimous fucking person, right?

Every time they talked, I could feel something gnawing away at the inside of my stomach, a weird fear, a slight resentment. Because she was a reasonable person. A likable person, even. Well, not that reasonable or likable, but anything was a lot in contrast to _me._ And if there was a likable person around to be friends with Naruto, then what reason would he have to keep me around? What insurance did I have that I wouldn't end up alone all over again?

Part of me wanted to just grab her by the collar and warn her one day: if you steal my _(family)_ friend from me, I'll fucking kill you. But I didn't. Maybe doing that would mean admitting something I didn't want to.

Or maybe it was just that I couldn't really hate her. I wished I could, to be honest. It would have made things so much simpler. But I was soft, and I was weak, and even if I resented Sakura a little, every time one of them smiled I felt a little bit like the world might not be hell after all.

I'm sure I told some of this to my stupid counselor. I told her a lot of things - because I had to, I convinced myself at the time, and _surely_ not because it was useful to have a place to vent - and because even if she wasn't magically fixing my problems, she was still right that things were fucking complicated. Counseling did jack shit for actually solving anything, but at least it helped me keep things organized in my head so I could angst over them more efficiently.

That's kinda how it is with mental health services. You take what you can get, because somebody saner says you have to.

... Maybe that's how it is with _life,_ to be honest.

* * *

So, what else was going on in the first half of my seventh year alive... let's see... right, right.

I was barely spending any time at the orphanage at all other than to sleep. I'd do anything I could to stretch my time away, but I did have to check in and pass out, there was just no getting around that.

There was a dangerous cycle there, though. The more I hid away at Naruto's place, the harder it became to go back. The more time I spent literally anywhere else, the more horrible it was to remember I still wasn't free of that place. Somewhere along the line I think it had become a lot more to me than just an uncomfortable and lonely home. It had become a symbol of everything I'd lost and everything I'd suffered. I couldn't even look at the building without feeling sick to my stomach. If I could've burned it down, I might have.

But that's what being a kid is all about, isn't it? Not getting to do the things that are really important to you. Being a slave to the system.

Well, that and falling further behind your classmates in taijutsu practically by the day. When you're me, life definitely keeps _that_ theme front and center. I guess the one good thing about it was that it definitely served as an outlet for aggression, even if I racked up genuinely impressive losing streaks.

On the bright side, as much as I'd originally felt totally doomed by the whole "get in one more unsanctioned fight and you're out on the street, kid" thing... it was actually working out. I was months into the school year and I hadn't fucked up in any major ways at all.

Really, _that_ was my big accomplishment for the era. At the time I didn't give myself any credit for it, but I think I should've.

* * *

Speaking of months into the school year, that was when we got started on something that I hoped could maybe make up for my uselessness in physical combat: memorizing hand seals. It would be a while before we really did anything with them, but it made sense to get started learning them early. That, and working early to increase wrist and finger flexibility to frankly insane levels.

It was dull, endless, boring, repetitive, joint-straining labor. Miserable, frustrating, mentally exhausting. Hours spent thinking and fidgeting in near-silence that was broken only by occasional curses from kids who were struggling.

... And I was good at it. _Really_ good. Or at least I was when I wasn't manic, which fortunately was still more often than not. It wasn't _fun_ learning, but it was incredibly satisfying to see myself actually succeeding at something, and it felt like a good sign for my future as somebody who could Do Things.

Memorization hadn't occurred to me as my strong suit, but then again, I still remembered almost everything about an imaginary language, dozens if not hundreds of imaginary songs _in_ that language, and a ton of information about other people and the future. I'd just... never thought of that as a _talent_ _._ After watching most of the other students work considerably harder than me just to remember _how_ to make seals, I realized that it definitely was.

I ended up actually helping Naruto occasionally, and that felt _good_ in a kind of cautiously arrogant way. After watching him consistently leave me in the dust in taijutsu, it was nice to feel a bit less inferior.

After about two months of hand seal training, the teacher mentioned off-handedly that I was about at a level the Academy expected students to reach by the _end_ of the year. We were only just barely coming up on summer.

* * *

Speaking of summer, it was basically a repeat of last year's vacation in hell. I don't have much to say about it other than that. It felt like I was about to hit my limit on staying sane through the orphanage situation, but what did that really mean when no "limit" I could hit would actually change anything?

* * *

The second semester kicked off with a surprise for me: my extreme speed at learning hand seals apparently qualified me to start working on chakra control half a year early. In the Academy, you did what you were capable of, so that meant extra classes for me. For once I didn't resent something the school did to me, though. I was incredibly impatient to feel useful, and if I was lucky enough to discover I was good at this _too,_ maybe I could be useful _soon._

It turned out to be a completely different kind of weird, boring, exhausting work, but it suited me pretty well most of the time. Meditation was pretty easy for me, except for manic days where I was completely useless, and it didn't feel difficult at all to get in touch with the liquid energy inside my "veins."

Once again, I was surprised to realize something that seemed reasonably doable to me was not nearly as doable for most of the others. These were all third-year kids, and a lot of them seemed like they'd practically have trouble even using chakra paper. In fact, a few of them had never done it before, and they _did_ have some issues getting to that point.

Some of my advantage here had to come from having shinobi parents, but a lot of it couldn't really be chalked up to anything other than natural aptitude. And... just like that, school became fun. Well, some of it, but still, that was a _huge_ improvement to the experience.

We weren't really supposed to be doing the _interesting_ chakra control stuff yet - climbing trees, walking on water - but I absolutely tried to anyway on my own time, using textbooks as a guide. It... didn't go well. I'm not even gonna try to guess how many times I failed even one step up a tree or plunged into a pond without even feeling resistance.

... But after a couple months of constantly working myself into a stupor, I started to make progress. A couple steps up a tree before I fell and earned a new bruise, a second or two of suspension before the water's surface shifted and I fell in.

Like many things I was good at at that age, I didn't realize this was actually legit exceptional progress until somebody pointed it out. And let me tell you, I was fucking _glowing_ inside when that happened. I was probably kind of a show-off about it, but I paid so little attention to the social fallout that it didn't actually matter.

If this was going to be my thing, and I got the feeling that it _was,_ I wanted to go fucking _crazy_ with it. Hand seal practice and chakra control exercises ate through as much of my time as I could use on them before physical exhaustion cut me off pretty much daily. Every little success made me feel like maybe I wasn't a lost cause after all.

I mentioned it before, but I did have one hurdle: I just could not do _jack shit_ while manic, although the harder I tried to do it anyway, the more I slowly eroded that barrier. Even as I was being praised for my learning progress, I was barely able to form hand seals while manic without rushing them so much that I screwed them up, and I still couldn't get a handle on manipulating my chakra when it was all weird and extra-fizzy.

But I wasn't gonna let that stop me. I'd found my niche and I was going to milk it for everything it was worth.

... I just had to hope that would be enough.

* * *

"Alright, tree. Today's gonna be different. Today I'm getting _four steps_ up your leafy ass."

The tree seemed distinctly unimpressed.

"Well, fuck you too, you stupid plant," I said, because I was extremely mature. Then I shut my eyes and focused on the chakra bubbling through me, slowly redirecting it to my feet. After a few seconds I felt mostly ready, opened my eyes, lifted one foot and extended it to the bark.

... Which splintered instantly, the force of the recoil knocking me on my ass. Ow. Not a great start. I usually found it tough to get that first step right – to really nail down the range of it that I needed. Dragging myself up again, I made a mental note to dial it back a bunch.

The next time I tried, I undershot it by a lot, and as soon as i tried to lift my other foot off the ground I tumbled over. Alright. Great. Well, that gave me two points of reference for how to fuck it up. The answer had to be somewhere in the middle.

Attempt number three went... a little tiny bit better. I wasn't repelled, but I still didn't put enough chakra into it; halfway to getting my other foot on there, the connection broke off. Back-first into the dirt.

It sure would've ruled if screwing this up wasn't so _painful._ Like, wouldn't that be cool, if there was a way to practice this shit without covering myself in bruises? I would've _loved_ that.

Thirty minutes later I was consistently getting to step two before falling. That was actually good. If I could keep it up, in another half hour maybe I'd be back to where I was yesterday. Thanks a lot, brain, for remembering details of the personal lives of people I'd never even seen but not how much goddamned energy I was using to climb a tree yesterday.

... Another thirty minutes later I was _not,_ in fact, back to where I was yesterday, so I took a break to yell at the tree. It didn't really help much, but it made me feel a little bit better, so fuck it, right?

"You're the worst tree! You're nothing! You're a dumbass piece of shit good for nothing wooden _motherfucker_ and in a couple of years nobody's even gonna remember your _name!_ Why are you even _here_ –"

"Um, are you okay?"

" _Aaaah!"_

I jumped like an idiot, spun around wildly, ready to defend myself from... oh. Some kid I didn't know. Well, that made sense.

"Don't sneak up on people like that, asshole!" The boy at least had the courtesy to look a little bit ashamed of coming out of nowhere to scare the shit out of an innocent little girl who had done nothing wrong apart from slowly attempting to bully trees into suicide.

"Sorry... I just thought... I don't know." He trailed off, looking down at the grass like he didn't want to meet my eyes. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize," I said, rolling my eyes. "If you go around apologizing to jerks all the time, people are gonna walk all over you." He looked up again, raising a thick eyebrow in confusion. What? Hadn't he ever met a self-hating idiot before?

... Why did this kid look so familiar? I could think of two people with ridiculous eyebrows, but nobody with a long braid and a general haze of depression. My knowledge of people at this age seemed to be more limited, though, so... man, whatever, I didn't know.

I gave him a second to say something. When he didn't, I just shrugged and went back to the tree.

One step... two steps... three –

 _"Fuck!"_ I slammed into the ground yet again. Even better, this time I had an audience! Awesome! That was the one thing I was really missing here. _More_ people to see me humiliate myself!

He didn't say anything, though. Just silently watched me fail. Y'know what? Fine, whatever. Enjoy the schadenfreude, mystery kid.

One... two... three... _fo –_ nnnnope never mind. Back, say hello to your old friends Dirt and Misery.

Ugh, just _getting up_ was already becoming exhausting. What secret did other people have that gave them a reasonable amount of endurance? Working out and fighting weren't doing me a whole lot of good so far.

Maybe I'd just... lay here for a while.

"... Why do you keep trying?" Oh, hey, he finally had something to say. I tilted my head to the side, ignored the grass prickling against my cheek, and tried to figure out who he was. I had one good guess, but it still felt off somehow.

"I don't know. I guess I have to."

"But why? Doesn't it hurt? Aren't you tired of failing? Why not just give up and do something else?"

I sighed. A better question: why was he wasting my time asking me shit? I spent enough time on miserable introspection without even more people trying to drag it out of me.

"I _hate_ failing, it's the worst. But chakra control is, like, the only thing I'm even close to good at, so what other choice do I have? Gotta work until my goddamn back breaks. I'll fall out of a million trees if that's what it takes."

( _If that's what it takes to be useful,_ I didn't say.)

He nodded. Something in his face gave me the weird feeling that he actually sort of understood what I was talking about. _Was_ this who I was thinking it was?

"I'm not good at anything, either," he said. "I can fight a little, but... I don't know. My teachers keep saying it's only my second year, so maybe I'll get better at stuff. It just – it feels..."

I wondered if he felt the same way I did about taijutsu, but in reverse. A stunning lack of aptitude; the ability to just _know_ that even the basic shit the other kids were picking up relatively well was going to be hard enough that it probably wasn't worth it.

"It feels like you're wasting your time. Like... you'd rather just admit you can't do it, and focus on the stuff that's not hopeless."

"... Yeah," he said quietly.

Okay, so this _had_ to be him, right, with the eyebrows and the everything? But if so, he still didn't look right. I couldn't remember ever seeing him with a ponytail. And that was... unsettling at best.

"What's your name?" It never got less surreal, asking questions I was pretty sure I could already answer, but this time I really wanted confirmation.

"... Rock Lee," he said, because of course he did. It was hard to be sure exactly why I had wanted so badly to be wrong. I didn't want to dwell on it yet.

"I'm Otsuka Namiko." Like he cared. What a creep I was, honestly. Did I really have to insert myself into the life of every single person I already knew was going to matter? I mean, I didn't go _looking_ for him, but... why was I trying to be real to him? "I think you should focus on what you _can_ do, y'know? That's what I'm doing, and it's kind of working a little bit, so far."

As if I could say that with any honesty. The only reason I could say that and sound confident was that I knew for a fact he would pull it all off. God, I was such a coward.

"What does it feel like? Using chakra that way?" He didn't meet my eyes, asking. I guess he was embarrassed. I wasn't sure why, but whatever.

"What's it feel like knowing how to throw a punch?"

Lee smiled, just a little bit. Were _all_ the cheerful idiot twelve-year-olds hopeless depressed losers at seven, or I supposed eight in this case? I could only assume that in a couple of years he wouldn't be great – not yet, at least, not until Guy took him under his wing – but he'd have made enough progress to convince himself it wasn't all hopeless. He'd have found something of a coping mechanism in relentless, desperate optimism.

"Well... I'm going to go back to training." Oh, so that was why he was out here. That made sense. I'd been so angry at trees that I hadn't even thought about it.

"Cool. I'm gonna go break my back some more. Godspeed with punching shit."

"Uh... thanks. Good luck with trees!"

I stuck my hand up and waved vaguely in his direction, waited until he'd walked out of sight to let it flop back into the grass.

Striving for perfection in one field, and letting everyting else fall by the wayside, huh? I'd sort of been doing that anyway, but... this chance meeting made me think that I ought to just commit. Sure, I'd halfway try at taijutsu, because I didn't want to get murdered by the first person who got close to me in a real fight, but maybe I'd just focus on defense from now on.

Some people were just meant to over-specialize, and I wasn't going to do myself any favors by pretending I wasn't one of them.

...

But something else was still bothering me, whether or not I was learning life lessons. Something that was worth dwelling on after all, even if it was freaky.

Why had Lee been so hard to recognize? I could remember some things about his childhood – not much, just... mental images, like items on a list – but I just did not remember him ever having that hairstyle. His outfit was different, too; a little more C̶͜h̵͘i̛͠n̶͘͞ȩ͝͝s̴͝e-styled, maybe.

Were my memories... fading a little bit? Or had they always been less reliable than I'd thought?

And what if the answer was both?

Great. More unsolvable worries. Just what I needed. Thanks a lot, universe.

I got back to my feet, both a little more determined than I had been before I talked to Lee _and_ a whole lot gloomier.

* * *

I didn't make it to four steps that day, even after another two hours of painful, frustrating failures. Naturally.

... But I made it there the week after.

At the time, the progress was only making me happy; it was slow and annoying, but it was meaningful. It was _hopeful._ I might not be completely useless. Maybe I really would succeed at something, anything. And I was excited about that, obviously.

I hadn't considered yet what the consequences of success might be. I was naive; I thought I was a small enough butterfly that I could flap my stupid wings forever and never kick up that hurricane on the other side of the world.

But the whole point is that _every_ butterfly is big enough to change the world.

Every single one.


	6. Drowning Butterflies (3)

**A/N:** Wait, the Naruto wiki says that kunoichi classes _are_ canon? Is that accurate? God dammit, am I gonna have to sit down and actually reread all of Naruto to be sure whether I'm diverging from lore on purpose, by accident, or even _less_ often than I think? That's practically like realizing I have to reread Homestuck, or like... ten percent of One Piece. I'll get to it eventually, I guess...

Naruto lore is such a nightmare, honestly. You know what, I'll do my best, but let's also just accept that enough things are different in this fic that sometimes I'm gonna get something flat out wrong and just sigh and roll with it. I can't keep Naruto setting lore straight. _K_ _ishimoto_ couldn't even keep Naruto lore straight. If I try to have a perfect grasp of Naruto lore I will literally lose my mind and eat my own brain.

Sorry for the massive delay again. A bunch of really dumb shit happened. On the bright side, I figured out some really important things for this fic down the line, and I feel a lot more confident about the plot.

Not sure I'm 100% satisfied with this chapter, but screw it. It's been a while, I need to stop obsessing so hard over quality control.

* * *

 _"You said somewhere there's a box full of replacement parts to_

 _All the tenderness we've broken or let rust away_

 _Somewhere sympathy is more than just a way of leaving_

 _Somewhere someone says I'm sorry, someone's making plans to stay"_

\- The Weakerthans, 'This Is A Fire Door Never Leave Open'

* * *

"I can't believe our second year's already ending. I can't believe I'm _eight."_ I considered lowering my face in my hands, but rejected the idea in favor of continuing to stare blankly into the middle distance. The sound of other kids screwing around during the last lunch of the year did nothing to mitigate my existential discomfort.

"Ugh, don't remind me. I feel ancient." Sakura, sitting with her legs crossed off to my left, sounded almost as depressed about it as I did.

"Aw, c'mon! Aren't you excited to learn cool new stuff? _I'm_ excited!" Naruto, on his back staring at the clouds to my right, was definitely applying his usual attitude to the situation. Good for him, having the ability to be positive about the future.

"You're _always_ excited. You get excited about eating ramen every single day." I could practically hear Sakura rolling her eyes. Say one thing about her: at least she was occasionally sarcastic. I could respect that.

"Hey, I'll stop being excited about ramen the second it stops being exciting, which'll be never ever." He sounded so confident about that... and worse, even though he was just being his usual self, I knew he was _right._ Honestly, I kind of envied his Dumbass Energy. Maybe he could lend me a bit of it someday, somehow. Not being a dumbass was overrated.

Apparently neither Sakura or I could think of a biting retort to that, so we just sat there and thought, for a little while.

"... Hey, you guys. I've been thinking a lot lately, and I kinda wanted to know... considering how fucking hard it's been, why do you two even _want_ to be shinobi?"

I sort of knew Naruto's answer, but I guess I just wanted to be having any kind of conversation about what the hell we were all doing with our lives, and I still honestly wasn't sure why Sakura bothered at all.

"'Cause I wanna be Hokage!" Yep. That sure was... his relatively vague go-to answer. "And then... well... nah, never mind."

Sakura gave him a weird look, then sighed. Well, if he didn't want to go in-depth with her here, that was fine. Far be it from me to force somebody to trust another person.

"I guess... I'm not totally sure," Sakura said. She looked like she meant it, too, which... maybe wasn't completely surprising, but still surprised me a little. "My mom and dad are shinobi, so it just seemed obvious. I mean, what else would I do? I don't want to let them down."

I could think of a few things, actually, including _doing literally anything but being a child soldier,_ but I really wasn't one to talk.

For a second – just a second – she seemed to be gathering herself to say something more... but she didn't.

Everybody has something they don't want to talk about, I guess.

"What about you?" She was looking at me, now, and like, yeah. Of course she'd want me to answer too. That was obvious, in retrospect. And I suddenly realized that I kinda didn't want to give a proper answer _either._

"... I mean, it's that or rot in that fucking orphanage, right? And... I guess... my parents were shinobi, too. So I..."

Damn it, I couldn't... _shit._ There wasn't any way to continue without being way more emotionally honest than I could deal with on that particular day, was there? And I didn't actually want to dissect all the layers of shit motivating me. I knew who I was (didn't I?), I just wasn't up for diving into that mess all the time.

I looked at Sakura and Naruto, who looked at me, and at each other, and then at nothing, and we all sat in uncharacteristic silence, watching students run and laugh and bully each other and eat and play, as the December sun hung high over the Academy.

Eight years old and none of us were functional enough to be honest with the few friends we had. What a life.

* * *

I tried to get through the day without dwelling on any of it, but something about fucking Sakura kept bothering me. It wasn't that I thought she should be doing something else with her life; really, we _all_ should've, but clearly we weren't going to. And it wasn't exactly that I felt sorry for her, not with the difference in magnitude of our issues. I wasn't a good enough person for that.

But it still nagged at me. I didn't like seeing somebody who didn't feel like she had options. Somebody who still had a family, but didn't seem to be able to rely on them. Maybe I just wanted to believe there were other good parents in the world, even if mine were gone.

Even looking back now, it's hard to explain to you exactly why I cared. That probably just goes to show something, but I'm not sure what it is.

So after school ended, I managed to lure her off to talk to me for a minute.

"Um, what was it you wanted to say?" She looked almost nervous. I supposed that made some kind of sense. Even if we were friends, I was a volatile enough person that it would've been stupid not to get anxious around me occasionally.

"It might be stupid. But... we were talking earlier, and, well... like I said, my Mom and Dad were shinobi, and..." I tried to keep my voice level. It wasn't the hardest thing to talk about anymore, but I still struggled a bit if I had to talk about it in any detail.

Sakura was painfully clearly trying not to fidget or stare. I think she more or less knew I didn't have parents, but that was a world away from having to listen to me make it real for her

"I wasn't sure what I wanted at first. Like, whether I wanted to do this, I mean. So I talked to them... and they were really kind about it, I guess. And that ended up helping me, kinda. So... I don't know. Your parents sound okay. I think they'd understand even if you did want to do something else with your life. I think you should at least talk to them about it."

I finally took a breath. Goddamn, that was practically a monologue. Sakura seemed taken aback by all of that. If I was better with people, I might have had a clearer idea of why.

"... Yeah, you're probably right," she said. "I don't know. I think I do want to be a shinobi, but... I'd feel better knowing it would be okay even if I didn't."

"Right. I mean, you've got options, is all." I sighed and tried not to fidget too much. She was looking all _grateful_ again and it made me feel kind of itchy. "Anyway. I'm gonna go fuck off at Naruto-kun's until I have to go back to hell. Later."

I ditched before she could try to look sympathetic. That was the last thing I wanted or needed.

I'd done my duty. Now I was gonna do my very best to pretend I wasn't about to spend a whole lot of time without my primary means of not being at a shitty orphanage.

* * *

Summer was bad. I don't want to talk about it, honestly. It's pointless. You already know how it went. I spent as much time as I could away from the orphanage. It wasn't enough. It ground away at me, the constant exposure to a world with something resembling hope in it.

I wasn't sure I'd make it through. I wasn't sure what not making it through would even _look like,_ but I felt like if I let myself think about it too hard, I'd just shrivel up and disappear, or like... run away from the village and just walk in a straight line until I died.

But somehow, I survived.

* * *

I continued to make kind of alarming progress with chakra. The people around me (mostly; we're not counting _Geniuses,_ here) moved at what felt like a snail's pace, and I was climbing halfway up trees and managing a couple faltering steps on the lake I practiced with. The people around me were finally all succeeding at using chakra paper, and I was informing my teachers that I already knew my nature was water.

... I left out the lightning-when-I-was-manic part. It didn't feel particularly important at the time.

God, I'm dumb.

Anyway. About the time everyone was getting their basic shit figured out, I was begging my teacher to help me start on water release techniques.

It was hard. Really, really hard. It was apparently easier for me than it was supposed to be, though, which... maybe cast some light on why kids generally weren't throwing jutsu around at age eight.

Konohagakure is not generally the best place to learn how to use water jutsu, and also water jutsu are _weird._ I probably shouldn't think that when they're such a central part of my arsenal, but it's true. You have to do some off-putting shit if there's no water source nearby, unless you're some kind of demigod.

Maybe that's not the biggest drawback, ultimately, but I'm just saying, you can only choke on dry land and roll around hacking up magic water like an idiot while your friends and/or classmates laugh at you before you start to resent your ancestors.

So yeah. I didn't exactly get that down right off the bat. Most kids seemed better at it, like forming the water inside their bodies made it easer to control. It's the opposite for me, even now: messing around with water that already exists just feels more natural.

I mostly practiced at the same lake I used for water walking. I'd sit by the water, stick some part of my body in it, let it swirl around. Try to sort of... forget I existed as myself, become One With The Water or whatever (a̧s ͜i͘t̛ w̶a̵s͜ méa̛nt to ͠b̢e͜), feel the way it moved, the weight and flow of it.

Then I'd push my chakra out along with that phantom-awareness, spread it outward in every direction until it was hard to tell the difference between its liquid-like flow and the actual liquid it was mingled with. Finally, I'd string together a couple of seals to focus myself, and just... throw water around, I guess.

It was really cool, actually. It's _still_ really cool. I couldn't do it with the force necessary to inflict actual harm, at least not at first, but I felt... I don't know. Powerful, sure. Capable, maybe. Like... for the first time since coming to the academy, being a moderately useful shinobi was actually within reach.

It was _right_ in some fundamental way, too, like making contact with some vital part of myself that I hadn't entirely understood I was missing.

(

͔̳̠͉̻̖̬̜͐ͥ̓͒̃̓̄́ă̶̛̪̦͎ͫ̏̋̄́̀ ̨̢̝̫̦̫̪͙͕̘͙ͪ̀f͈̈́̎̋͆ȋ̧̜̫̩̳͔ͭ̈͑ͫͤͯ̾ͅr̝̗̝̱̩̘̞̀͆̔̄̋͒ͪ͛ͅs͍̭̩̦̬͖ͫͩͦ̑̅̆t̬͇̻̖ͯ̆̀́ͤ̏ ̧̨̼̻̖̻͈͓͛̽͌͂ͨ̄ͥͅͅs̵̮̭̲̗͕̱ͩtͬe͙̰̘͉͔̠̤̟ͥ̆̏ͯ͌̂̾͛́̀͡ͅp̡̥͍̰̣̦͈͇͙̅ͦ̈́̓͆̀̕ͅ ̫́͌̕t̎o̿̈ŵ̱͒͂ͤ̉ͪ͠ȁ̔͒ͮͩ̏̚r̡͚̠͓͓̱̮̰͋͐ͥḋ̸̵̗̝̲̞̝̳̗̼̣ͤ̎̿̽́ ̡̛͉̱̮̯͉͋ͅy̷͍͖͛̇ͩ̏̽͑͜o̺͙͖̓̂̽u̼ͥ̽ͥͭ̉̒͋̈́̿͠ͅr͈̙̻̣̣̆ͥ ̧̢̠̫̥͕͑ͣͫ̈́ͦͦ̀̕ẗ̢̜̭̝̙͇̞͎̝̏̑ͮ̈͗͌h̷̙̎͗r̷̀͊̌͒͏̴̹̼̳o͓̹̰͉̮̰͕ͣ̈́̊͒̾͐ͨͯ͟ͅn͊́̈̔͋ͮͮ͏̺͕̗͕͔ͅe͍͖̗̩͋̎̄̾͊͛ͤ̈́)̴̲̖̩̼ͫ͛̃ͮ͑͑͟

)

I dreamed of the sea more than ever. In my dreams I was untouchable. I melted into the waves, and they moved at my command; even the storms that raged in roiling black skies above were my servants. I could crush my enemies instantly with a flicker of will, smite them to ashes with a thought.

But... more importantly than being able to hurt others... nothing could possibly hurt _me._

I'd wake up and feel a terrible sense of longing and anxiety, and that day when I'd practice, I'd feel frantic, desperate to attain a sliver of that lost sureness of identity, of safety.

Even if I couldn't, though, things were going well.

* * *

... Or at least they were going well in _that_ regard.

Kunoichi Class was another matter. I guess on some level I'd figured I would start growing into it. Like, sure, maybe I had been unable to _imagine_ that, but wasn't that just how it worked? Kids always think they'll be the same forever, and then they get a little older and start slotting into their roles in society, a tiny bit at a time.

Except not, apparently. I still felt like a weird, grubby goblin-child surrounded by pretty flowers who barely made sense to me at all. And maybe part of me was starting to be a bit jealous. Not necessarily jealous of them for being the kind of people they were, but for having such an easy time being human.

I didn't feel like less of a girl, exactly, except maybe I kind of did - not that I literally wasn't one, but definitely that I wasn't going to get to be the thing I was in any way that mattered to other people.

So I kept on getting bad grades, and I kept on glaring at most of the other girls, and I kept on leaning on Sakura to scrape through my stupid flower homework, and time kept on passing.

* * *

And then I made the biggest mistake since the last time I made a biggest mistake, in a surprisingly similar way, because people like me are very fucking dumb and fall into the same pits over and over until we die.

It started at kunoichi class, and it started with another girl being bullied. Again.

Except this time it was Hyuuga Hinata. You'd think rich, extremely pretty girls would be exempt from common cruelty, but she had weird eyes, and that was enough. Maybe there was more to it than that; maybe that was the other girls' excuse to lash out at someone they perceived as more refined and privileged. I don't know. I don't pretend to understand humans.

She was so _pathetic._ She never stood up for herself, not even a little bit. She'd just stand there and take it, like she thought if she made herself small enough they'd get bored and leave her alone, even though that's like, never worked for anybody since the dawn of time, in any world.

On some level that annoyed me. She was almost complicit in her own suffering, wasn't she? And she was a _Hyuuga._ I bet she could've trashed anybody in our class if she tried. I guess learned helplessness is a real bitch like that.

On another level, it tickled at that ugly little part of my brain that likes to think "girl in trouble, must rescue at all costs." What was up with that, anyway? Wasn't that supposed to be a problem _boys_ had?

I'm not sure what pushed me over the edge with her. Probably nothing specific; probably there were only so many days I could watch these things happen to someone who pinged as real to me before instinct took over.

There was one big problem, though. If I got in one more stupid fight, I'd probably get hurled straight out of the academy. I couldn't be totally sure of that, of course; it'd been at least a year since all that drama, so maybe they'd cut me some slack. But maybe they wouldn't, and I couldn't afford to risk it.

And so, at lunch on one particular day, I put Operation: Make Someone Else Do My Work For Me into action.

Naruto and Sakura were screwing around arguing about something; I'd tuned them out to stare at the girl in the distance being harried over dumb shit, but now it was time to interrupt.

"Hey, Naruto-kun. Do you see that girl in the distance? The one getting harried over dumb shit?"

Naruto stared at me, brows furrowed.

"What's harried mean?"

Goddamn it, Naruto.

"Don't worry about it. The girl getting bullied over there."

I pointed off at the Hyuuga nerd, who was definitively getting the shit harried and/or bullied out of her. Naruto's eyes widened, and I struck quickly to capitalize on that moment of even-more-minimized-than-usual rationality.

"Can you, like... _do_ something about that? As a favor, or whatever? It happens all the goddamn time and I'm sick of it, but if I accidentally get into a fight I'll be executed."

"Executed?!" Sakura looked at me incredulously. I shrugged.

"Executed, expelled, whatever. Same thing, basically."

"That's not even slightly the same-"

"Yeah, okay!" Naruto cut her off. Sakura grumbled something rude to herself as he got up from where he was sitting and sprinted off to make bad decisions on my behalf.

"You're a really bad friend, you know that?" Sakura glared at me disapprovingly. Honestly, it actually stung a little. Like... yeah, she was totally right, but... wasn't this at least in _service_ of some theoretically valuable ideal?

"I guess. He loves it, though, see? He probably would've done it on his own if he was paying enough attention to notice."

Sakura sighed and shook her head, abandoning me in favor of her bento, which presumably didn't use and abuse people at all.

We watched from a distance as Naruto gesticulated wildly and said what were probably super inspiring and heroic things. The girls put up a little resistance, but they dispersed pretty quick; picking on someone wasn't worth exposing themselves to some kind of Untouchable Freak, I guess, and they didn't have the guts to pick on him too.

Hadn't I had some idea last year about trying to set Naruto and Hyuuga up, or something? Did this count? Did I even still want to? Wouldn't that be some kind of horrific abuse of my knowledge? What actually mattered here was that this was something worth doing, not... stupid potential child-crushes, but...

Actually, wait. No, what _actually_ mattered here was a much more startling and uncomfortable realization. Wasn't this moment supposed to happen _years ago?_ Hadn't he been meant to be nice to her on the first day of school ever, or something like that?

Holy shit, did I ruin that just by knowing him? Did I make this girl wait an extra _two years_ to be stood up for by anyone at all?

I tried not to feel too much like a monster as the two of them talked about... something or other, I guess, but... it didn't really work. What kind of evil does somebody have to be to permanently worsen other people's lives just by existing in the same world?

Eventually, after sitting in silence with Sakura rightfully ignoring me as I stewed in self-loathing, Naruto wandered back. I guess the Hyuuga girl must've just... left? I hadn't even noticed. So much for this being about helping her.

"So, uh... how did it go?" I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to say. Like, congratulations, you totally did all my work for me?

"Great! I think? I mean... she seemed pretty happy. Does that mean I did a good job?" God, he was so earnest _literally_ all of the time.

"Yeah, probably. They left her alone, right? That's gotta count as a success."

Ha. Yeah, right. A success at repairing a small amount of the damage I'd carelessly done, completely through someone else's effort. Cool. Great. Well, it was a start. And... maybe this helped him have a little extra self-esteem? Or something?

... Fuck, all of my future knowledge _really_ should've gone to someone smarter.

* * *

It's really, really important for anyone in this life to have people who are willing to cover their ass when they fuck up. You know? You need somebody who'll hide the body with you, lie to the cops for you, take a hit when things are bad.

And you need to _earn_ those people. Sometimes _you_ have to help hide the body. Even in terms of simple pragmatism, it's vital that you make sure your friends are appreciated. And more importantly, people who stick by you deserve to feel like they matter.

... I guess what I'm saying is, don't be me.

Then again, that's the gist of pretty much all of my advice, isn't it?

* * *

Somehow I thought Hyuuga would just disappear from my radar. I thought that at most she'd maybe become Naruto's friend, probably distantly. Why would somebody that fancy have anything to do with me, even if she _did_ end up with a crush on my best friend?

So you can imagine the look on my face when she just popped up out of nowhere the next day at Friend Lunch: the shocked grimace of someone presented with a living reminder that their birth was essentially a sin.

Also, I was way too socially awkward to be thrust into meeting a new person so suddenly. I can't pretend _that_ wasn't a big factor.

"Um... hello..."

I thought for a second she was going to continue, but instead she trailed off into uneasy silence. At least she was talking to Naruto and not me. Thank every possible god for that.

"Oh, hey, Hinata-chan! What's up?"

Hyuuga flushed pink instantly. I guess getting Name-chan'd out of fucking nowhere has a tendency to embarrass people. Sakura shot me a glance that I decided to interpret as _"Can you believe this guy?"_ I returned it with an expression that hopefully communicated _"You can't even imagine the things I'm willing to believe about this guy."_

"N-nothing... I just, um... wanted to thank you? For saving me?" Holy shit, how could a person be that _fidgety?_ And also, 'saving?' Seriously? That struck me as an awfully big word for getting a ten minute reprieve from the experience of being around other children.

Once again, I was grateful that I didn't have to handle her. I got the feeling I'd accidentally shatter her like an expensive vase by the end of my first sentence.

"Nah, it's no big deal," Naruto said, clearly pleased with himself anyway. "It was her idea, anyway!"

I froze, and contemplated the pros and cons of running away to live in a hollowed-out tree trunk. Hyuuga looked between Naruto and I, obviously confused, while I did my best to pretend I'd never even _heard_ of eye contact.

"Really? Why?" Hyuuga seemed genuinely confused, and somehow I could just _tell_ that she wasn't confused by the logistics of it, she was confused that someone would have given even one sliver of a fuck.

"Yeah!" No, no, stop, just take the credit, you narc! "She got into a million fights and stuff so now she can't beat people up anymore or she'll get expelled so she asked me to help instead!"

Thanks, Naruto, for vomiting up a bunch of personal information about me without asking for permission! That ruled, I _loved_ it. I stared at Naruto, the ultimate traitor, and then at Sakura, who was in the middle of a very suspicious coughing fit...

... And then at Hyuuga, her eyes full of stars, like she'd just gotten done hyping herself up to ask a celebrity for their autograph.

I cleared my throat, then cleared it a second time.

"That is... technically what happened, yeah. Uh... I sure did make those decisions. Look, it's not that I _cared,_ I just... think bullies are garbage and they should be all be dead?"

Way to phrase that in a non-concerning way, self. Super good. Top marks.

Hyuuga didn't look concerned, though. She looked... I don't even know what she looked, but I didn't want _any_ part of it.

"Thank you so much, um... actually, I think I don't know your name?"

I wanted to tell her to go the fuck away, that I couldn't give a shit less if she knew my name or not, that I was _not_ on the market for any sort of new friends and/or admirers, and that she really shouldn't expect me to get involved in her problems ever again.

"... Otsuka Namiko," I answered, wincing. "Uh... the idiot's Uzumaki Naruto-"

"Heyyy, I'm not an idiot," Naruto mumbled unconvincingly.

"- and the bitch who's apparently left me for dead in this conversation is Haruno Sakura."

"Takes one to know one," Sakura shot back, elbowing me in the side.

Hyuuga took in our extremely terrible group dynamic like it was interesting in a way that _didn't_ resembling a smoldering pile of garbage.

"I'm, um... Hyuuga Hinata. But you knew that."

She sounded disturbingly small when she squeezed out the Hyuuga part, and I wondered just how badly I'd fucked up her psychological development by accidentally having a friend at the wrong moment.

... People whose voices did that weird quivery thing shouldn't have been on their own in the world. That was just totally fucked. Was there really nobody out there who was willing to care about her? Not even one other kid?

Well, I sure as hell wasn't gonna be the one. I'd done my good deed for the century and I was never going to speak to her again if I had any say in the-

"Hey, Hinata-chan, you should hang out with us!"

Naruto clearly thought this was the greatest idea ever had by a human being. It took every ounce of my willpower not to smack him upside the head.

"R... really? Would that be okay?"

Oh no, she sounded _so_ hopeful. It was not acceptable for people to sound that hopeful.

"... Sure, why not? It'll be fun," Sakura said, like a monster that only knew how to hate, and smirked when I glared at her with enough force that it should've wiped her off the face of the planet.

I didn't want to 'hang out' with Hyuuga. I would've preferred to rip my own fingernails off with my teeth and shove my hands into the ocean. Just thinking about trying to cope with a change to my already-precarious experience of other human people made my spine tense up.

I stared at my so-called friends, who clearly wanted me dead, and at Hyuuga, who was starting to resemble an extremely pitiable mouse from an abusive mouse-hole.

"... Dammit. Yeah, okay. If you want to."

Her face lit up like a sky full of the world's most pathetic fireworks, and for just a second, something felt weirdly off-center in the pit of my stomach, but it was too late.

My fate was sealed.

* * *

Lunch ended almost immediately, granting me the rest of our school day to sit around failing to focus on anything as I awaited my annihilation. I know how dumb that sounds, I know 'a person I don't know very well is going to be near me' is a stupid reason to be stressed, but that's just how it was.

As the minutes ticked by, that feeling of apprehension and anxiety swelled and swelled, my mind running through an endless series of bizarre scenarios in which everything was awkward and stupid and bad, and I wondered... why?

Why _was_ I freaking out so badly over this? I hadn't been _great_ at meeting Naruto or Sakura, but there wasn't this pervasive sense of unease, this same weird spiraling vision of embarrassing futures.

... It was almost like I gave a shit about making a good impression.

* * *

Before I knew it, school was over, and it was time to... do whatever 'hanging out' even was. Usually I'd just be myself in an area where my friends were also engaged in the human sin of existence. Wasn't that, like... supposed to be enough?

It didn't feel like enough. Everyone just stood around outside school, vaguely confused about the directions our lives were taking. Maybe it was because she was rich and cultured. Naruto and I were nightmarish goblin children, and Sakura was a pretty ordinary person, so of course no one knew how to deal with her.

"So, um... I think my parents want me to do... flower things. At home. I'll see you later, Naruto-kun, Hyuuga-san, Namiko." Sakura waved and fled the scene so quickly I didn't even have time to be visibly offended about apparently not warranting an honorific today.

A few more long, painful seconds stretched out. Naruto picked at his clothes. Hyuuga stared at the ground.

And I was absolutely, for sure at my limit. This could not continue, I'd lose my damn mind. We had to do something. Occupy ourselves somehow. We had to do _anything,_ as long as it was distracting.

"Hey, let's do something. You guys want to do something?" I was quickly getting nearly as fidgety as Hyuuga. I felt like I could hear every damn leaf crinkling against the road as the breeze picked up.

"O...kay? What should we-" Hyuuga responded, bless her useless little soul for trying, but I wasn't inclined to give somebody else the stage at that particular moment.

"Something interesting! Anything! Like, let's... how about... _let's go do petty vandalism."_

When was the last time I'd done some nice, satisfying petty vandalism? Maybe never, and wasn't that fucked up? What kind of idiot would bumble through life missing opportunities to do interesting things?

Hyuuga's eyes widened as she slowly processed the idea of doing a crime, even a small one.

"Wait, isn't that... bad?"

"No! I mean, yeah, but don't you _want_ to do something bad? Your life looks so fucking boring, Hyuuga-san. Live a little bit."

"Uh, Nami-chan, I think you're getting kinda... y'know," Naruto said nervously, performing an elaborate and indecipherable series of gestures. On some level, I knew what he was getting at, and on some level I knew he was probably right to try to cut me off, but...

"It's fine, we're fine. C'mon, we can go throw rocks through somebody's window." How would the glass sound as it shattered? I wanted to know. Wanted to watch it fall and glittered in the afternoon light, commit it to memory.

"That's a super bad idea?" Naruto bit his lip, the vague sense of responsibility he must've held toward me as a friend warring with his instinct to fuck shit up. "Maybe we could just-"

 _"Yes,"_ Hyuuga said out of absolutely nowhere. Her eyes were wide, all but electrified, and she sounded deadly serious. "I mean, no, wait, we shouldn't... but..."

For the first time, I felt like maybe I could relate to something she was feeling. Why _wouldn't_ someone with a stuffy, stupid, rule-choked life be desperate to just _break_ something? I knew I shouldn't have been okay with, like, dragging her down to my level, but I was. I really was.

"Yeah, Naruto-kun, come on, break some shit with us!" I picked up a rock and hurled it off into some nearby bushes. "Imagine doing that, but to something _non-boring._ Imagine it." I'm not sure why I thought that would be convincing.

But the thing about Naruto is that he has a terrible personality when he's not being heroic, and he's _really_ easy to convince.

Before long we were stalking the streets, searching for prey.

* * *

"How about... nope, somebody lives there. Damn. Next street."

"That window looks _ripe_ for breaking... but no, line of sight to that fruit stand. Next."

 _"Waaaay_ too close to all those prostitutes. Keep moving."

"No, all those windows are too small, it's like, why even bother? Next. Next next next."

* * *

And then, at long last, we found it. The perfect piece of public property to destroy for no reason: a moderately-sized warehouse that was totally empty and even had a door hanging half-open. Maybe teens came here to do teen things? Irrelevant, but intriguing.

"Alright. Okay. Rocks. Get scavenging. Find yourselves _good_ ones." Hyuuga nodded as if it made perfect sense for me to be ordering her around. Naruto was already busy doing it. I could always count on him to have a drive for mischief, couldn't I?

It didn't take me long to find a nearly fist sized chunk of stone with real nice heft to it, and I all but vibrated waiting for the others to get their shit together.

"Is this... a good rock?" Hyuuga held out her hand, nervously showcasing her weapon of choice. It seemed alright to me, as far as rocks went.

"Sure, whatever. Naruto-kun, are you - oh nice. Let's do this. Let's _do_ this."

Logically speaking, Hyuuga should've been disturbed by this. Any reasonable person would've been disturbed by me, right? But instead, she seemed _galvanized_ by my evil energy. Maybe some people just needed a little push to live up to their potential as miscreants.

"I'm taking the middle window, you get the left and right ones. Yeah, those. Alright. On three. One... _twothree!"_

The sound of shattering glass was every bit as sharp and beautiful as I had hoped it would be, a glittering cascade, the sweet music of destruction. I felt, in that flawless moment, like I understood my place in the world. Like some people were born to break beautiful things, and maybe that was okay.

"Oh, wow," Hyuuga mumbled. She sounded like her pupils would've been _huge_ if she had any.

"Yeaaaah! Awesome!" Naruto pumped his fist into the air, because he was great and had great taste in activities.

"Hell yeah. Do you guys wanna do that again? We could - _oh shit."_

Voices in the distance. Angry, concerned, _grown-up_ voices. I'd sort of forgotten that even if no one can see you make bad decisions, they can definitely _hear_ you.

"Wh... what do we do?!" Hyuuga sounded like she was on the verge of tears, or at least a panic attack, and without thinking I grabbed her arm and dragged her along with me as I darted into the warehouse, Naruto following close behind.

It was dark inside, red-orange light pouring in weird slanted shapes through the shattered windows, gleaming off piles of broken glass, illuminating the dust that drifted through half-stale air.

"They're going to _check in here,"_ Hyuuga whispered into her hand, shrinking against the wall. Shit. She was totally right. There was no chance of us getting out of this. We couldn't even fight our way out, not against adults. Actually, could Hyuuga? Wasn't she super special or some shit? But no, she had _that_ personality, there was no way.

A male voice outside was shouting something along the lines of _who's there_ and _that better not be some more damn kids,_ but I didn't have much room to absorb any information apart from Enemy Approaching, Find Solution.

Damn, wait, wasn't hurting people against the law, too? But surely it couldn't be _too_ wrong if it was in self-defense. Shit, _shit,_ if only I knew anything remotely resembling a useful jutsu. Someone with talent probably could've found a thousand ways out of this. Someone with talent could've just focused on their chakra and _done_ something.

In the dark, my skin tingling, veins buzzing with adrenalin, I thought I saw the smallest flicker of blue light... but it was probably just my imagination.

"... Stay here," Naruto said. He sounded... weirdly serious. The footsteps outside were getting close.

"Huh? What're you..." I trailed off, hoping my sudden flash of insight was wrong.

"You can't get in trouble, Nami-chan! Stay here and be quiet." And before I could object, he walked right out into the evening light, and the waiting arms of what may or may not have been some sort of law.

I should have gotten involved. I should've left my hiding spot and dealt with the consequences of my shit brain alongside him... but I was scared of being expelled. I was selfish.

So I stayed there, crouched next to Hyuuga in the dark, hands over our mouths, while my best friend got in trouble for something the two of _us_ had wanted to do more.

* * *

The rest of that evening is honestly a blur. I was coming down from my horribly-timed episode, sinking into a blue abyss of self-loathing. Hinata was some weird combination of shell-shocked and elated. She kept looking at me like she thought I was cool, even though I was, in fact, the fucking worst.

At some point, she decided to go home, where I'm extremely sure she must've been _at least_ yelled at for disappearing. I saw her off with a miserable _'It was nice meeting you I guess, Hyuuga-san,'_ and she vanished into the night.

I only had two places I could go, and kind of felt like I'd rather drown myself in the nearest pond than go back to the orphanage, so I went to Naruto's place instead, sitting outside the locked door in the dark, watching the stars come out.

I felt like I waited there for hours, but realistically it was probably an hour and a half at most before my stupid idiot human shield returned.

Naruto didn't hold it against me. That's the worst part, you know? Nothing makes me feel worse than when someone I fucked over refuses to hold it against me. If someone's angry at me, fine, whatever, but if they're _not..._

I guess I have no idea how to deal with people blaming themselves for my mistakes. No version of me ever has. Probably no version of me ever will.

Eventually I did go back to the orphanage, since it was the closest approximation to jail I could think of. I couldn't sleep for hours. I just stared up at that shitty, badly-maintained ceiling, marinating in regret, until eventually I dug Dad's coin out from its hiding place, hoping it would comfort me somehow.

It did not comfort me. Instead, I just stared at its weathered surface and thought about how disappointed in me he'd have been if he was alive.

Some people don't deserve to have friends, is the thing. Some people really, really shouldn't rely on anyone else to clean up their mistakes.

And some people are just too selfish to stop.


End file.
